Labour Relations
Amendment Act (Construction Industry), 2000, Bill 69,
Mr Stockwell / Loi modifiant la Loi sur les
relations de travail (industrie de la construction),
projet de loi 69, M. Stockwell
Mechanical Contractors
Association of Toronto
Mr Brian McCabe
Mr Steve Coleman
Mr Neil Prestwich
Construction Unions of
Ontario
Mr Patrick Dillon
Ontario General
Contractors Association
Mr Paul Charette
Mr Don Cameron
International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Construction Council of
Ontario
Mr John Pender
Toronto Residential
Construction Labour Bureau; Metropolitan Toronto
Apartment Builders Association
Mr Richard Lyall
Tom Jones
Corp
Mr John Jones
BFC Industrial;
Kvaerner Constructors
Mr Ken Steven
Mr Gary Robertson
International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 353
Mr Joe Fashion
Vanbots Construction
Corp
Mr Matt Ainley
Independent
Contractors Association
Mr Arthur Potts
Mr David McDonald
Greater Toronto Home
Builders' Association
Mr Jim Murphy
Mr Eric Wegler
Universal Workers
Union, Local 183
Mr Mark Lewis
Mr Antonio Dionisio
Masonry Industry
Employers Council of Ontario
Mr John Blair
Mr Eugene George
Ellis-Don
Construction
Mr Bob Smith
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
JUSTICE AND SOCIAL POLICY
Chair /
Présidente
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre
PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean
PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre
PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton West / -Ouest ND)
Mr Raminder Gill (Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale
PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Research and Information
Services
The committee met at 1537 in room 151.
LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT (CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY), 2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS
DE TRAVAIL (INDUSTRIE DE LA CONSTRUCTION)
Consideration of Bill 69, An
Act to amend the Labour Relations Act, 1995 in relation to the
construction industry / Projet de loi 69, Loi modifiant la Loi de
1995 sur les relations de travail en ce qui a trait à
l'industrie de la construction.
The Chair (Ms Marilyn
Mushinski): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We
have quite a number of delegations this afternoon. I will remind
you that delegations have a maximum of 10 minutes. You can use
all of that 10 minutes as you wish. If there are a few minutes
left after the completion of your submission, we will go to
committee members for questions.
MECHANICAL CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION OF TORONTO
The Chair:
The first delegation is Mr Brian McCabe and Mr Neil Prestwich
from the Mechanical Contractors Association. Good afternoon.
Mr Brian
McCabe: Good afternoon. My name is Brian McCabe. I am
the executive vice-president of the Mechanical Contractors
Association of Toronto. Joining me are Neil Prestwich, president
of S.I. Guttman Inc, and Steve Coleman, executive vice-president
of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario, our
provincial body and employer bargaining agency.
Collectively, we represent
400 companies operating primarily in the industrial, commercial
and institutional sector of Ontario's construction Industry.
To assist the committee in
understanding our role in the overall construction process, we
felt it was important to note that the mechanical portion of a
typical ICI construction project includes anywhere from 40% to
60% of the total construction value and is usually the single
most labour-intensive portion of any project.
Mechanical contractors are
general contractors in their own right, in that a typical
mechanical contract often includes anywhere from six to eight
subcontracts with respect to sheet metal, refrigeration,
sprinkler, fire protection, insulation and system controls, often
along with subcontracts in the electrical and civil trades
areas.
Our association has worked
with the government over the past six months in discussions
leading up to the introduction of Bill 69. Our position
throughout these discussions has focused on the need for
legislation embracing improved management rights as a source of
added incentives for fairness, effective bargaining and improved
competitiveness in Ontario's ICI construction industry.
Clearly, and to our
disappointment, Bill 69 has overlooked this approach to dealing
with our industry's problems, and the perception that the
Minister of Labour has been conveying to the public that there
exists broad management support for the content and intent of
this legislation could not be more wrong.
Aside from our concern that
an unduly time-consuming and difficult process approach versus a
management rights approach has been taken in this legislation, of
immediate concern to us is that section 160 of the proposed
legislation amounts to a blatant oversight of universal
management rights, a granting of further unilateral powers to
construction unions, and is aimed at benefiting a strictly small
and select group of general contractors.
The rationale for including
section 160 does not appear to be evident. It begs the question
of why it is there in the first place. No self-respecting union
bargaining agent would even consider voluntarily giving up their
tie to any individual contractor once that tie is in place. Union
leaders work long and hard to gain these rights and certify
employers or employer groups on behalf of employees. To give up
those rights and subsequently allow the decertification of any
employer would seem to be inconceivable.
We ask that section 160 be
replaced with wording providing for certain controlled management
rights for all construction employers, not just general
contractors or select firms, clearly the true oversight of Bill
69. At minimum, it should be amended to require that the employer
bargaining agency's approval also be required before any firm is
granted relief under this section.
We also implore the committee
not to support a call for special legislation to accommodate the
release of a select group of general contractors, as certain
parties have called for in earlier submissions. It is imperative
that the committee recognize that all unionized employers face the same non-competitive
challenges existing in Ontario that these select firms face, and
relief for certain groups over others would be wrong. The
supposed gains in competitiveness that Bill 69's enabling process
generates will benefit these select firms, in whatever supposed
way they benefit other employers tied to the union in any
particular trade.
It is our understanding that
the government intends to conduct a serious review of the
ultimate impact this legislation has on our industry by December
31, 2001. We believe, however, that this review will be
inconclusive, as key components of the act will have had
insufficient time to determine their value, and current market
conditions mean the industry will be busy and not in a position
to thoroughly address lost markets and what it takes to compete
in them.
Nonetheless, we look forward
to playing a major role in this review and receiving the
government's future support for additional legislative action
where and when warranted to effectively address the lack of
competitiveness and fairness in our industry.
We wish to sincerely thank
the committee for its time and attention and ask for their full
support of our noted amendments.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr McCabe. There are about four minutes left.
Mr Rick Bartolucci
(Sudbury): Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr
McCabe. You are obviously outlining some of the concerns you have
with section 160 as it relates to getting out of agreements. It's
safe to say that workers' incomes are businesses' expenses and
that would be your reason for wanting to get out of that. Is that
correct?
Mr Steve
Coleman: Could you clarify that?
Mr
Bartolucci: You don't want to get out of those
agreements. Clarify that for me.
Mr Coleman:
Our concern with section 160 is that we're trying to understand
why that was put in the proposed bill. It seems to be written to
accommodate what we understand is going to be special relief for
six or eight companies. That has certainly been the understanding
of the deal that's supposedly in the works. We can't understand
why, for any reason, that section would be put in the bill other
than for something like that. If there is going to be wording
such as that left in the bill, at a minimum we want the
requirement that the employer bargaining agency also can give a
yes or no on whether a company escapes.
Mr
Bartolucci: Sorry for misphrasing my question.
The other thing I want to
deal with is in regard to the final offer selection. Are there
any concerns with that, the way it's spelled out in the
legislation?
Mr Neil
Prestwich: My name is Neil Prestwich from S.I. Guttman.
I'm part of MCAT and MCAO. We have some concerns in terms of the
method in which that's going to be handled and the time frame it
will take to deal with that. We also have concerns in terms of
what's required to be able to put forward a strong argument for
any amendments to the existing agreements. Our collective
associations: Basically Brian represents MCAT, and other than
Brian and a secretary in the office, that is the extent of the
association. The resources are not in-house in order to
effectively put something together for it.
The second part of it is that
the way the amendments to the bill are written at this point
precludes any changes to the existing agreements until such time
as a new agreement is in place. Our new agreements don't come
into place until next year. If the review is to be at the end of
next year, there is only about a six-month time frame to even
begin to look at these. That's in section 43, I believe, of
section 7.
Mr David
Christopherson (Hamilton West): Thank you for your
presentation, gentlemen. I've got to tell you, this whole thing
just gets curiouser and curiouser. My background is labour and I
need a program to understand where the players are. You'll
forgive me if part of my limited time is taken up just trying to
understand exactly what's going down here. Section 160 provides
that an employee bargaining agency, meaning the union, can
abandon the bargaining rights that bargaining unit holds through
the union, and 160 basically relieves them from any repercussions
of abandoning those rights and leaving the workers.
You're opposed to that
happening. I've got to tell you, this almost could have been a
union submission. "No self-respecting union bargaining agent
would even consider voluntarily giving up their tie to any
individual contractor once that tie is in place. Union leaders
work long and hard to gain those rights and certify ... ." You'll
forgive me for being so confused as to what the play is, but
obviously you do not want the unions to leave your workplace, or
at least you want a say in whether that happens or not. Is that
correct?
Mr Coleman:
To explain, as we mentioned in our submission, we question why a
union would ever unilaterally let any employer out. What we
expect is happening is that there's been a deal where some will
be let go and others will be left tied, and we feel that's
discriminatory to other employers in this province. As we mention
in our brief, our position is that there should be management
rights equal for all employers, not some kind of mechanism built
in to let some kind of a commitment be played out.
Mr
Christopherson: Two quick things on that.
The Chair:
Just one more minute, Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: I've got to tell you I have a little bit
of a problem with your request based on the argument that it's
the workers who decide whether or not they want to join a union,
and not the employer. However, I understand that in this case it
may be that the unions themselves are the ones abandoning-that's
the word in the law-those workers. So I have a little bit of
difficulty from a philosophical approach about your request, but
I certainly understand the dilemma.
It's my understanding that
the other group of contractors, the eight, their opinion is that
they don't even want it voluntary, that they want it mandatory
that every one of them has to abandon their rights.
Mr Coleman: That's right, and again
our position is that the same rights they get, all employers in
this province should get.
Mr
Christopherson: What are the implications for this for
you as a group? We heard it from the other side.
The Chair:
Very short, please.
Mr
Christopherson: I appreciate that, Chair.
I understand the benefit to
the eight. What's your side of this?
Mr McCabe:
If they get the opportunity to get out, our employers then don't
have the same opportunity.
Mr Marcel Beaubien
(Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): Thank you for your
presentation. In the second-last paragraph you mention the lack
of competitiveness and fairness in the industry. Briefly, for the
little guy from Lambton-Kent-Middlesex who has not dealt with
labour and doesn't understand the process, if you had to put your
finger on the competitiveness and fairness aspect, what would you
tell me?
Mr Coleman:
I'll give you a couple of examples. We have new upstart companies
that have come into the province to compete on the same work with
companies that are tied strictly to the burdensome conditions of
being union. These new companies oftentimes are members of unions
who have formed companies, have started a non-union company, and
they're out there competing against long-standing union companies
that don't have the same opportunities. You have out-of-province
companies coming into Ontario, and that disadvantages companies
that have been long established here.
The marketplace is different
in 2000 than it was in 1971, when things like section 1(4) were
brought into this legislation. You heard the comments from the
coalition yesterday. We fully support those opinions. We feel the
government should be focusing on management rights across the
board in this legislation, not what we view as a burdensome
process. It's really avoiding the real issue. We're creating a
false marketplace by bringing in those processes.
Mr Beaubien:
Would eliminating section 1(4) solve your problem?
Mr Coleman:
Eliminating section 1(4), as we mentioned in the coalition
presentation, was one option. Our bottom line is management
rights. Now, 1(4) has been flagged, but there are different roads
this government can move on to bring about controlled management
rights that don't bring in a wide-open gain but bring in fairness
to all employers, not something for eight companies and not
something just for general contractors, but something for all
employers in the province.
1550
CONSTRUCTION UNIONS OF ONTARIO
The Chair:
Mr Patrick Dillon, Construction Unions of Ontario.
Mr Patrick
Dillon: Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee
members. My name is Patrick Dillon and I'm here to represent the
Construction Unions of Ontario. On my left is Alan Minsky, legal
counsel.
Before I get into making
comments on Bill 69, I'd like to make a comment to the committee,
and the comment is to the committee, not to the clerk who set up
the meetings. I'm quite stressed that this Bill 69-it is not a
minor piece of legislation affecting construction workers and
employers throughout this province. This is fairly major and we
have been given 10 minutes to come in to explain how this works
for us. I would take the fact that we came in here to explain how
this works for us as our opportunity to educate you as to what
works in our industry and what doesn't. I know it's not going to
change for this time around. I know it can't all be laid at the
clerk's feet, but I would say to all three political parties that
in future we should be very careful to make sure that when people
come in, they have the time slot allotted to them to do a proper
job. I might say that if we had to stay here until 8 o'clock at
night, we would have done that. If you couldn't have more days,
we could have extended the period into the evening.
On Bill 69 itself, I'd like
to review a little bit how we got to where we're at and how Bill
69 came forward. This issue did not start, despite what some
people are saying, because a whole multitude of employers were
banging at the government's door because they couldn't be
competitive in the construction industry. This issue got started
by eight general contractors that, as they see it, have a
particular problem in the province of Ontario. Their
recommendation at that time was that the government should grant
"three and out" legislation and that would resolve all the
competitive problems for contractors in the province. That
started a furor among contractors and the unions. That was the
elephant killing the ant approach to labour relations.
That discussion went on for a
period of time and ended up bringing the petrochemical industry
into the discussion for mega-project agreements. At the end of
the day-long story short-Bill 31 came out. It did not address the
particular problem that the general contractors had brought
forward. It addressed an issue for our poor sisters in the
Chemical Valley, who I don't think should be poor anymore with
the price they're charging for gas; it looked after the banks;
and it really caused stress for the unions. It made it more
difficult for unions to organize, which means that it's more of a
competitive problem for contractors that were here originally
making their requests. I'd just like the committee to be clear on
that. When you restrict the construction unions from organizing
or make it more difficult for us to organize, these unionized
employers are going to be at your door saying they've got
competitive problems. I say that to them and I say that to you to
be aware of that.
The next approach came right
after the last election, in which we in the industry found a
brief floating around that was put out by unnamed contractors at
the time that was making an economic argument as to why 1(4)
should be removed from the act. Those people who started that
brief finally got some advice from somebody-some reasonable advice-that they could
not sustain an economic argument and that they should move away
from that, and out they came with another brief entitled the
Coalition for Fair Labour Laws. It's probably the farthest thing
from fair labour laws that you could get, but once you start
reading it you would see that for yourself.
I was called into the
ministry, told that this lobby was going on and explained what
the coalition was looking for. I suggested to the Minister of
Labour-and I have to commend the Minister of Labour for
listening-that we never came into his office or came to the table
ever saying that there weren't some problems in our industry and
that negotiated solutions are the way to resolve those problems.
The minister agreed and struck an industry committee of labour
and management to have some discussion about resolving the
problems.
At the first meeting-and I
want this to be clear with everyone-the Minister of Labour
addressed the six on each side and told us that he really
believed, genuinely himself, that there were some competitive
problems in the construction industry, and of course we hadn't
denied that. He told the unions, going to the bargaining table,
that we should go there with the thought in mind that the status
quo was not going to be a way of resolving our problems. He also
told the employers that he realized their solution to the problem
was that 1(4) was the answer but that they should go to the
bargaining table looking to negotiate an industry deal because
1(4) may not be delivered to them. So that kind of set the stage
for us to go to the bargaining.
It's interesting that you
hear employers, and I heard one here yesterday, talking about the
unions having a monopoly in the construction industry in Ontario.
But they say that in one second and then in the other second
they've got all this non-union competition. So where's the
monopoly that the union has? I'm saying to you that in some ways
we need to listen carefully to what people are saying because I
think you could certainly get mixed messages, at best, of where
people are coming from. I guess the one comment I'd make is that
employers would think a monopoly is all right as long as they
have it. Let me say that a political party might not think a
monopoly is so bad as long as they had it. But anyway, the
monopoly in my view just isn't something that there's a real
rationale for the employers' argument.
As we got to the bargaining
table, the employers' position was that 1(4) was the solution and
that all of a sudden now there's an imbalance in the bargaining
structure and there has to be a structural change. Everything has
to be changed because the unions control everything. I'm sitting
across the table listening to this and sitting across from me are
people I negotiated with when I was negotiating for a trade, the
electrical trade at that time. We had put a bargaining mechanism
together that's not a lot different from what's being suggested
here in the legislation, although I'll comment on that later on.
It was a bargaining mechanism that both the employers and the
union in that circumstance-and I think probably the biggest
employers in the province, man-hour-wise anyway, in one
particular trade. They are spending $300,000 and $400,000 and
$500,000 a year advertising on the radio, and you'll hear it on
590 CHAM and other radio stations, about the great bargaining
mechanism that employers have and the unions. They're sitting at
the table, part of this coalition, saying that there's an
imbalance in the bargaining structure. I clearly do not
understand that.
So I go back again and I say
that we need to be careful when we're listening to the mixed
messages that I think seem to come out, and I say that with due
respect. I understand people taking positions to forward their
position but the problem that I see is we went to the table and
had the discussions. The unions went to the table to negotiate;
the employers went to the table to lobby. They never really did
get off their position. I heard here yesterday where they moved
off their 1(4) position; that's true that they did. But the
bottom line of the position that they still had on the table was
double-breasting-another number, but it was double-breasting-and
the construction unions in this province are not going to stand
for that.
Getting to the brief itself,
I'm going to touch on a couple of things. We think we've filed a
fairly balanced brief, not to say that other people haven't, but
I'm going to touch on a couple of areas. That doesn't lessen the
importance of the other clauses.
Certainly the designated
regional employer organization mechanism that you have in Bill 69
will not work as it is. It definitely needs some changing.
The multi-employer offers to
the arbitrator absolutely will not work. As I said, I was part of
putting one together in the earlier years of my life where we
used a final offer selector, and the way it works the best is
that the employers and the unions should meet up front and decide
if there's a competitive problem.
1600
Within the time frames that
are in the act, the next step should be a negotiation that takes
place at the local level. At the end of that negotiation, if
there's not a deal, they present their final positions, one from
employers, one from the union, to the selector. But before they
hand those final positions to the selector, they've got to hand
them to one another so that the selector isn't dealing with
something totally different from what the parties were talking
about through their negotiations. That's the way the one works in
the IBEW. In my view it has a pretty decent track record. I think
the employers and the unions would say that.
The other area is in the
language, the significant competitive disadvantage. We are
suggesting that "significant" be put in there. There was some
discussion here yesterday that it's hard to define. In our brief
you'll find how it can be defined in the act. You'll also find
that "disadvantage" is not defined anywhere in the act. But there
are bodies that have used the word "significant" and it does have
meaning. I say that in a constructive way.
We tried to file a brief that
will work in the industry. We can end up disagreeing here, with
the government doing what
it likes on its own or may want to do on its own. If it doesn't
work in the industry, it's bad for the employees and it's bad for
the employers. The only way we can go away and work together is
if this mechanism works, so I suggest you take a serious look at
the suggestions we've made.
The Chair:
Unfortunately, members of committee, there isn't time for
questions. We started a little late and we have a full
afternoon.
Mr Dillon:
I've got all kinds of time.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Dillon. Mr Don Cameron and Mr Paul Charette.
Mr
Christopherson: On a point of order, Madam Chair, while
they're coming to the table: Once again, I think for the third
time, to the parliamentary assistant: the legal position of the
government vis-à-vis 163.5 and 163.2?
The Chair:
That's not really a point of order, Mr Christopherson, but I'll
allow a little leeway if you would like to respond to that, Mr
Gill.
Mr Raminder Gill
(Bramalea-Gore-Malton-Springdale): We don't have an
answer yet. It's a complex issue. I've been in touch with the
policy people. We do intend to bring that forward very soon but I
don't have an answer for you right now.
Mr
Christopherson: You know what? That tells me that what I
was told is not the case, that it's not going to hold up, and I
would strongly suggest to the unions in here that they start
paying close attention to that because the implications for this
bill are serious.
The Chair:
This is taking time from delegations, Mr Christopherson. We have
to move on because we only have until 6 o'clock.
Mr
Bartolucci: Just a very short point of clarification,
Madame Chair: That was promised to the committee and it was my
understanding it was going to be here before the end of the day
today. Will it be here before the end of the day?
Mr Gill: No,
it will not be. We don't have an answer yet. We don't want to
give you some hurried answer. We're trying to investigate. We're
trying to find out what's best.
Mr
Christopherson: Start worrying.
Mr Gill: I
don't have an answer for you today. Will it be here before the
hearings are over? Yes. Absolutely.
The Chair:
Members of committee, the longer you take to debate this, the
more time you're taking away from the delegations. I would like
to move on, please.
ONTARIO GENERAL CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
Mr Paul
Charette: My name is Paul Charette. I am the chairman of
the Ontario General Contractors Association and the president and
CEO of Bird Construction, an 80-year-old company operating in
Canada in five provinces.
Mr Don
Cameron: I'm Don Cameron, president of the association
since 1990, and formerly a contractor.
Just by way of background,
the Ontario General Contractors Association members build some
75% to 80% of the industrial, commercial and institutional work
in Ontario. The association was founded in 1939 by and for
general contractors. Our membership includes small, medium and
large firms from across the province. Members are a mixture of
open shop, plus or minus 60%, those signatory to one or more
trade agreements, about 30%, and those bound to an all-trades
agreement, some 5% to 10%.
In 1990 membership was 60%
unionized firms, which has now dropped to less than 40%. Some of
the well-known unionized general contracting firms that have
disappeared include EGM Cape, Bradsil, Jaltas/Janin, V.K. Mason,
Matthews, Mollenhauer, Milne and Nicholls, and Varamae. There are
many others, some of them 50 to 100-year-old companies.
OGCA provides to its member
firms safety and education programs, assistance in tendering and
contract problems, liaison with other industry groups and with
buyers of construction, and other services.
Goals of labour legislation
amendments: In the speech from the throne Mr Harris gave us hope
of significant change with words to the effect that the
government "acknowledges the need to improve and modernize labour
relations in the construction industry across the province." And
from the draft paper entitled Potential Approach to Address ICI
Sector Competitive Issues, from the Ministry of Labour, there
were phrases such as: "addressing current concerns regarding
competitiveness of unionized employers in the ICI sector of the
construction industry"; "not able to compete with non-union firms
in a number of markets and in a number of geographic areas, and
are losing market share as a result"; "contribute to job growth
and job creation"; "improve unionized construction contractors'
ability to survive and compete in Ontario."
By way of comment on Bill
69, for general contractors 40% labour mobility as provided in
the legislation is only slightly different than the status quo
for many of the civil trades specified in agreements.
The 60% name-hire provision
will be beneficial in areas where this practice is not already in
place. So there's a small change there that's helpful.
Section 126 amendments
regarding single employer declarations will have limited impact
on a small number of firms where key man is an issue and sale of
business is an issue. Legal opinion, however, is that this is not
a meaningful change and that bargaining rights might still well
transfer to successor companies and the goal may not be
achieved.
Section 160, entitled
"Agreement to abandon bargaining rights," requires agreement of
the unions. There's no provision for arbitration if the union
refuses, and the Ministry of Labour is apparently brokering an
agreement currently under this provision that is a partial relief
for a few firms but leaves many of their competitors still bound
to some of the same agreements.
Section 163's local modifications/arbitration
provisions may provide for reduced rates in some segments of the
market but might be very difficult to implement. For example,
does someone really expect that a carpenter working on the
construction of an industrial plant would be willing to work on a
school for the next year at $2 an hour less when his buddy moves
across the street to a hospital at the full rate?
There are provisions in the
bill for the residential sector that we find might be interesting
as a solution for some of the problems in the ICI sector as
well.
Mr
Charette: We have the following recommendations for
amendments to the bill:
Legislation is definitely
needed now to address the competitiveness issue to try to stop
the declining numbers of unionized general contractors, as noted
in our opening remarks.
Firms bound by union
agreements where they do not employ such workers directly should
be freed of those onerous agreements, as we believe contractors
should not be bound to non-operating agreements for life.
Contractors should be able
to run parallel union and open-shop operations in order to be
competitive.
Provisions of Section 160
should be made mandatory and we recommend an arbitration process
similar to sections 163.2 and 163.3.
Public bodies such as
municipalities and school boards, which have construction trade
union agreements, should be free to contract or subcontract out
their construction work, without regard to union status of the
contractor or subcontractor. For example, the Toronto school
board and City of Toronto are bound to agreements that dictate
they must use only union contractors. Publicly funded work should
be open to all qualified contractors without regard to union
status, which is in the best interests of the taxpayers'
dollars.
The agreement under section
160 between the building trades and a number of general
contractors being facilitated by the Ministry of Labour, must be
extended such that other contractors are not left in the same
non-competitive position from which a few are being granted
relief.
We also recommend that, as
provided for under the residential amendments, the timing of
strikes be limited from the period of May 1 to June 15 for the
ICI sector as well.
Thank you. That's the end
of our recommendations and our presentation.
1610
The Chair:
Thank you. We have about two minutes left for questions, so I
think we'll just go to one member. Mr Christopherson.
Before you do start, Mr
Christopherson, ladies and gentlemen, at yesterday's hearing I
had to ask three times for cell phones to be turned off. I'm
asking today politely, please, if you have cell phones, will you
turn them off. They're very disruptive to both committee members
and to delegates who are addressing us. So I'm asking you to
please turn them off.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you very much for your
presentation. The third point in your recommendations is that
contractors should be able to run parallel union and open-shop
operations in order to be competitive. Basically, that would be
the de facto result of removing 1(4).
Mr
Charette: Correct.
Mr
Christopherson: Two questions: One, I asked an employer
on the first day of the hearings a hypothetical question but it
made the point, whether or not everybody in the construction
industry becoming unionized eliminated this question of being
uncompetitive. He answered that, yes, that would be one solution.
Would you agree with that? Not that you want it or that it's
desirable on your part, but if you want to remove the question of
competitiveness or being uncompetitive, then if everyone was
unionized, you wouldn't have this problem.
Mr
Charette: I guess one could say that in Quebec they
probably have a similar system to that and it's apparently not
working well. They're looking at change to that system.
Mr
Christopherson: My point is that the third bullet point
you're asking-basically, if we take a look at Alberta and we take
a look at what 1(4) means, it's the beginning of the end. One
could argue that at the end of the day, and that may be two
years, 10 years or 20 years, the effectiveness of the
construction labour movement, in fact its very existence as we
now know it, will be gone. Why would things not devolve down to
the non-union wage level where things are, yes, more competitive
because nobody's making as much money?
Mr
Charette: I disagree with that point. We operate in
Alberta and we operate both union and non-union, and we operate
in those sectors very successfully.
Mr
Christopherson: Common sense says that will be the end
result.
Mr
Charette: Well, it's both, union and non-union.
The Chair:
Thank you, gentlemen.
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS
CONSTRUCTION COUNCIL OF ONTARIO
The Chair:
Mr Bob Hill, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Construction Council of Ontario. Good afternoon.
Mr John
Pender: Hello. I'm sorry, Bob Hill is not here today. My
name is John Pender. I'm the executive secretary-treasurer of the
Construction Council of Ontario. To my right is Joe Fashion, the
business manager of IBEW Local 353 here in Toronto.
IBEW-CCO is the legislated
bargaining agent for the industrial, commercial and institutional
segments of the electrical trade in Ontario. We represent
approximately 14,000 unionized electricians, apprentice
electricians, linemen, linemen apprentices and communication
electricians in 13 local unions across Ontario.
The CCO wants to make it
abundantly clear that from the very beginning of the industry
talks which commenced in December 1999, support for any changes
to the Ontario Labour
Relations Act by our organization hinged on the understanding
that all contractors, whether they be general or subtrade, will
remain bound to their existing collective agreements and section
1(4) of the act remains intact.
The IBEW-CCO position is
that it supports Bill 69 in principle, on the understanding that
the general contractors will be bound by their existing
collective agreements unless released by the industry or the
Ontario Labour Relations Board.
The IBEW-CCO has been
cautiously supportive of these invasive and potentially
destructive changes being put forward for only one reason-because
hanging over our collective heads is the threat that the
alternative will be the employers' position.
I'll quote from the Ontario
Coalition for Fair Labour Laws, their brief dated December 1999:
"The desirable solution is for the government to amend the
Ontario Labour Relations Act to exempt ICI construction companies
from section 1(4) of the act."
The effect of this change
would be to allow double-breasting. The Ontario Coalition for
Fair Labour Laws and certain employer groups have stated that the
current method of province-wide bargaining places them at a
competitive disadvantage in some regions or sectors of the
province, which may result in unionized contractors being
unsuccessful when bidding against non-union companies. These
employers are of the belief "that improving and modernizing
construction sector labour relations requires changing labour
laws so that there's a fair balance of power between employers
and unions in the ICI sector and from this change will flow
collective agreements which will allow unionized companies to
compete with non-union ones."
The employers are telling
you that province-wide bargaining is the reason we are in this
state of non-competitiveness, yet everybody in this room knows or
should know that province-wide bargaining is the result of an
intense lobby in the late 1970s of the government of the day by
construction employers' groups, not unlike the groups that are
lobbying for change today. The system of bargaining that was
their panacea, to the woe of the construction industry then, is
now the cause of their financial demise in the marketplace of
today.
So I caution this committee
to not accept everything that the employers have put forward to
them as being the only solutions. I offer you another adage:
those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
I would like to refer to
the bill and give you our perspective, a union perspective, that
takes into consideration our fears and concerns.
Section 163.5, subsections
(1) and (2), mandatory default hiring hall practices, allows
employers mobility for up to 40% of the total number of employees
from any local or locals in the province required for a project
anywhere in Ontario. Further, the employer will be able to select
or name-hire 60% of the employees from the local union in whose
geographic jurisdiction the work is performed.
I'm sure you've had
examples put before you and I won't dwell on them. I'll tell you
what our view is. It is that this process gives the employer the
right to name-hire the same individuals for all their projects
across the province and results in an unfair advantage of some
members over others. It will create two economic levels in the
province, the haves and the have-nots. It will pit member against
member, local against local. It will create an imbalance in
hiring within the province. Smaller communities, smaller locals
will suffer most. You can imagine a company taking 40% of a crew
into an area that has been in the grip of unemployment for a
prolonged period of time. How do you think the members in that
geographic area are going to react? How will older members and
members who have taken on the role of stewards, health and safety
representatives, fare in this selective hiring process? In our
opinion, these individuals will be blackballed and subsequently
they will become the sub-class who will never be selected by an
employer. The end result would be a system of hiring that's based
on favouritism and nepotism, rather than a fair and equitable
distribution of job opportunities voted on and approved by local
union members.
Section 163.2: The section
gives the employers the right to seek amendments to virtually
every clause in the collective agreement, save statutorily
regulated holidays and hours of work. Employers can seek
exemption from clauses like wage rates, overtime, benefits,
travel, room and board, and requirements respecting the ratio of
apprentices employed by an employer, just to name a few.
A provincial employers'
bargaining association and a designated regional employers'
association of the bargaining agency may apply for amendments for
all work anywhere in Ontario providing at least some of their
members carry on business in that particular geographic area.
Our view of that is that
this section severely undermines the collective process, as the
employers will have no incentive to bargain in good faith as they
have an avenue to seek changes to the collective agreement
outside of negotiations. In effect, this section of Bill 69
renders the collective bargaining process meaningless.
Members of the committee, I
implore you to take a look at this section with great care. I
suggest to you that the ramifications of an impotent bargaining
process will set in motion an era of labour unrest unprecedented
in this province. There will be strike after strike this coming
spring if this thing goes through-the very thing that nobody in
this room wants and has worked to avoid for years.
1620
Section 160.1: This section
allows unions to voluntarily abandon their bargaining rights. I
agree with the people who spoke earlier. The view of the IBEW-CCO
is that this section of the bill was created to allow the general
contractors, with the union's blessing, to abandon their
agreements. For the record, I want to state unequivocally that
the IBEW-CCO will not voluntarily release any contractor or general contractor
from the existing collective agreements under which they
currently operate.
Further, we must clearly
state our objection to any government action that will release
the general contractors from their signed agreements, whether it
is inside area 8 or across the province. Taking this direction
would put the Ontario government in the position of nullifying
existing collective agreements, and we do not believe this is a
correct role for any government.
Section 163.2: This section
gives employers-and I would think this includes the general
contractors-the right to seek amendments in our collective
agreements. Members of the committee, the general contractors
should have to demonstrate a significant competitive
disadvantage. They should not be treated any differently than any
other employer covered in this bill.
Section 163.3: This section
of Bill 69 deals with a very complicated arbitration process for
both parties. The union and the employer are entitled to put
forward a final offer with respect to the provisions of the
collective agreement that the employer association wants to
amend, along with written submissions. Should an arbitrator not
be agreed upon by both parties, either party may make a written
request to the Minister of Labour to appoint an arbitrator. The
appointed arbitrator is not required to hold an oral or
electronic hearing unless he or she feels it is necessary to
resolve an issue arising out of the submissions.
The only relevant factor
the arbitrator is to consider is whether or not the employer
organization members are at a competitive disadvantage. The
arbitrator must determine if there is a competitive disadvantage
and, if so, determine whether that competitive disadvantage would
be removed if the collective agreement were amended in accordance
with the employer's application. Our view of this is that that
section makes Bill 69 designed to force unions to make
concessions. There are no stipulated criteria as to what
constitutes competitive disadvantage. Therefore, any or all
clauses in the our collective agreements would be susceptible to
arbitration.
The issue of selection of
an arbitrator is also of grave concern to our organization. If an
arbitrator is not agreed to by the parties, either party may make
a written request to the minister to appoint one. Should an
employer organization purposely not agree to an arbitrator for
whatever reason, then the minister shall appoint. This raises the
issues of experience and neutrality, especially in the
construction industry. What further taints this process is the
Ministry of Labour's apparent disdain for current arbitrators,
asserting that they are biased in favour of the unions.
This process will be costly
and time-consuming for both the employer and the union, and will
require industry studies, briefs and experts, such as economists.
There can be no doubt as to what this arbitration process will
do. By design it will simply lower the wages of working union
members in the province of Ontario. Thank you.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Pender. Unfortunately, there's no time
left for questions.
TORONTO RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION LABOUR
BUREAU
METROPOLITAN TORONTO APARTMENT BUILDERS ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Mr Lyall, Metropolitan Toronto Apartment Builders Association and
Toronto Residential Construction Labour Bureau. Go ahead.
Mr Richard
Lyall: Thank you for providing us with the opportunity
to make a very brief presentation. The Toronto Residential
Construction Labour Bureau and the Metropolitan Toronto Apartment
Builders Association represent exclusively unionized home
builders operating within central Ontario, with the majority of
our members concentrated in the GTA. Over 75% of the homes
constructed in the GTA and surrounding regions are built by our
member companies. We represent our members in a wide variety of
areas from collective bargaining and grievance arbitration to
health and safety and labour law reform.
I would first like to take
this opportunity to thank the government on taking the initiative
to correct what has been a long-standing problem in the
residential construction sector. As was evidenced in the summer
of 1998, the system of collective bargaining in our sector was
structurally inadequate, directly contributing to a series of
overlapping strikes which effectively shut down our industry for
an entire summer building season. It was evident to all the
parties that our system required a much-needed repair.
By facilitating a
discussion among the parties involved in the residential
construction industry, this government has created a framework
which remedies the historical problems of the past with
innovative solutions for the future. While Bill 69 does go a long
way to improving our system of collective bargaining, some minor
adjustments with respect to the residential portion of the bill
are required in order to ensure that the interests of new home
buyers are fully protected.
Scope: A significant number
of collective agreements cover the county of Simcoe and board
area 9 currently. If the act were to exclude these regions, a
significant number of new home buyers in those areas could be
affected next year by disruptions. It would appear this would
defy both the spirit and intent of the amendments. As a result,
to ensure a legislative fit with existing collective agreements,
and equal treatment under the Labour Relations Act, it would be
more appropriate to amend section 150 to include the county of
Simcoe and Durham region. Furthermore, all the parties involved
in the discussions agree that these areas be included.
Interest arbitration:
Currently, the proposed amendments to the act restrict the
duration of a strike or lockout to 46 days, with all strikes or
lockouts ceasing by June 15. Although the parties are required to
send the matters in
dispute to arbitration after June 15, nothing should prevent the
parties from agreeing to forgo their respective right to strike
or lockout and send any agreed-upon issues to arbitration before
the strike period begins. As a result, we assert that section
150.2 should be amended by adding the following provision: The
parties may jointly refer the matters in dispute to arbitration
in accordance with this section at any time after notice to
bargain has been issued in accordance with the collective
agreement.
Arbitrator's powers: With a
limit on the right to strike or lock out, it is imperative that
the final dispute resolution procedure, whether it be final offer
selection or mediation arbitration, be not only fair and
effective but binding and above reproach. In order to achieve
this, it is imperative that the arbitrator be equipped with the
necessary remedial and authoritative power to force the parties
to disclose any or all required documentation and information
needed in order to fashion an award. To this end, we suggest that
section 150 be amended to include the following provision: The
provisions of subsections of section 48 apply with necessary
modifications to the proceedings before the arbitrator and his or
her decision under this section.
Regulations: During the
discussions on collective bargaining reform in the residential
construction industry, an almost unanimous consensus existed
among the parties that the negotiation process begin earlier.
With a defined period for strike or lockout activity, it is
instrumental that notice to bargain and an exchange of proposals
occur earlier than is currently required under the act. As a
result, section 150 should be amended by adding the following
regulation-making power: Prescribing time limits for the
commencement of collective bargaining, including the exchange of
bargaining proposals.
It was also generally felt
that more communication and dialogue between industry
stakeholders prior to and during negotiations would have both a
positive and meaningful impact on the collective bargaining
process. In light of these concerns, the Ministry of Labour
agreed to host a type of industry forum every four to six months
between negotiation cycles, and every three to four months in the
year prior to bargaining. These forums would not only add value
to the bargaining process but would also enhance the parties'
knowledge on issues being faced within the industry. We believe
the proposed legislation should also the reflect these
concerns.
Conclusion: Once again, I
would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee and
the government for its time and commitment to improving and
modernizing collective bargaining in the residential construction
industry. The proposed amendments, in addition to the suggested
modifications, only serve to reinforce and enhance the
effectiveness of the legislation and the vitality of the
residential construction sector.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Lyall. We have about four minutes for
questions.
1630
Mr Carl DeFaria
(Mississauga East): Mr Lyall, I am quite concerned,
particularly with the construction workers' salaries. It's a
field I'm familiar with. I did that work. I have lots of family,
friends and other people in that field. I noticed that a lot of
submissions made by union representatives talked about and
requested amendments to section 163.2 regarding wages: instead of
indicating wages, to indicate wage packages. I am concerned about
that, because that seems to be a way to shift the money from the
wages workers would be paid to other benefits or to other costs
of the union.
The other item I am
concerned about is the amendment that some propose to section
163.5 to prevent employers-it's the ability to hire up to 40% of
the total number of employees, because I'm also familiar with
some people who have told me in the past that they have been
waiting for a job for two years, that they go to the union office
and their names will never be called.
What I want to know from
you is, do you see anything in this bill that would have a
negative impact on the construction workers' salary? I wouldn't
want to see that happen. I wouldn't want to see this bill
affecting the salary of the construction workers negatively.
Mr Lyall:
Two things: First of all, with respect to wages and the
negotiation of wages, we have typically negotiated total
packages. The unions are the legal representatives of the
employees governed by the collective agreement and it's the
members of the union and their processes that determine how they
want things handled. We don't interfere with that.
For example, we'll
negotiate an amount of money and the union that represents the
employees-don't forget, the employees ratify any agreements-will
determine where that money is going to go. We don't get involved
in that. The only time we would even think of getting involved in
something like that would be if we thought there was something
that might be a mistake. I have rarely ever seen something like
that.
In terms of the 40%, we
don't have to deal with that issue in the residential sector.
That's an ICI issue.
Mr
Bartolucci: Thank you, Mr Lyall, for your presentation.
My background leads me not to agree with what you're saying with
regard to limiting the right to strike. I say that in all honesty
because of my background.
I've done a little bit of
studying about labour negotiations at university etc. I lived a
bit in the industry when I was a labourer. The studies indicate
to me, and I think example leads me to believe, that restrictions
on the right to strike undermine serious collective bargaining.
If an employer can plan for 45 days, he can wait the period out.
If we have a series of 45 days, to me that undermines a growing
economy, which you would want and the unions would want. What are
your comments on that, and would the answer maybe be a
longer-
Mr Lyall:
I appreciate what you're saying there and I think I understand.
Certainly, when we first raised the issue of proposing an
arbitration model like this, a lot of people thought we were out
of our minds because their view of it is, and some people have
looked at the literature which would suggest to them, that the
employers, or in this
case the builders, would lose in an arbitration model.
I think you have to
consider this in the context of what industry we're talking
about. In the residential construction industry, we have
hundreds, if not thousands, of contractors and builders. It's a
fiercely competitive market. There are a lot of players in
bargaining. It's not a typical, classic industrial type of
bargaining relationship. There are a lot of players on both
sides. The system is only as strong as its weakest link.
The reason we proposed what
we proposed-it was most evident in 1998, which was the best
example of that-was where one particular section, one part of the
industry, one particular area of bargaining would break down, and
then it would bring the whole industry to a halt. It's happened
and it results in thousands of layoffs, people not working and
home buyers not able to move into their houses. For example, I
know we had letters and memos in the thousands from home buyers
in 1998. They had sold their previous house, and whoa, hang on,
they're in a motel all of a sudden because they can't move into
their new house.
Then we had situations
where there were thousands of construction workers who also were
literally out of work and might leave the area and go work
somewhere else, and then you lose them. It's the disruption too.
You don't have a week's strike and then, boom, things go back to
normal again. It takes a long time to reschedule things. Our
industry is very sophisticated. There's in excess of 20 subtrades
on any given project and it takes a lot to get it back together
again.
So within the context of
our particular industry-and I'm not looking at Ford or anybody
else, 3M or Caterpillar-within our industry, this kind of system,
this kind of change makes sense.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Lyall. We have run out of time.
TOM JONES CORP
The Chair:
Mr John Jones of Tom Jones Corp. Go ahead, Mr Jones.
Mr John
Jones: Madam Chair and members of the standing
committee, thank you, first, for this opportunity to speak to you
today about Bill 69. I'm only too glad to have travelled 1,000
miles at considerable expense today to be here with you and
listen to this committee.
My name is John Jones. I am
the co-owner of Tom Jones Corp in Thunder Bay. We are now
entering our third generation as a construction company, founded
by my father some 50 years ago.
In 1980, our company was
successful, or perhaps unsuccessful, in tendering a project in
Oshawa. For this one project only, our site superintendent signed
the Toronto-Central Ontario Building and Construction Trades
Council agreement for the Toronto area, and it was reinforced by
the building trades representatives, additional assurances that
this was a project agreement only. This project agreement was
specifically for the geographical boundaries of Metro Toronto,
known today as boundary area 8. The agreement was to have been
only for the duration of this one project.
However, in the early
1980s, shortly after the signing and certainly without our
knowledge, the Toronto Building Trades Council, representing the
unions, applied to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to have
these agreements declared as voluntary recognition of the
province-wide agreements of all their affiliates, 24 agreements
in total. The labour board, in an unprecedented decision, found
that we, the general contractors, were bound not only to the six
civil trades but to all 24, including those 18 trades where we
had never directly employed workers and, further, made the
decision retroactive to the date of signing. That is how this
project agreement has followed me to Thunder Bay.
In the past six years, with
increasing non-union competition as well as semi-union
competitors, we have found ourselves to be totally
non-competitive. I'm here today asking for relief outside of
board area 8, as promised by the Minister of Labour and the
Premier himself.
The relief promised by the
minister, Chris Stockwell, outside board area 8 does not relieve
any of the eight general contractors from any collective
agreement obligations where the contractors have signed
collective agreements on the basis of either voluntary
recognition or through the formal certification of the Ontario
Labour Relations Board, based on the employers having
direct-hired members of the local union.
We are the only company in
northwestern Ontario, which is our home base, placed in this
unfortunate and unfair position. We therefore support Bill 69 if
it in fact provides relief outside of boundary area 8 from the
restrictions of the Toronto-Central Ontario Building and
Construction Trades Council Agreement.
I thank you.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Jones. Mr Christopherson.
1640
Mr
Christopherson: I think we can all understand your
dilemma in terms of how you see it from your position. The
difficulty some of us are having is that the solution that's been
found here, at the end of the day, is not just going to give you
the relief that you need; it's going to mean that there are
probably thousands and thousands of workers across the province
who are going to receive less wages than they do now. Even the
unions that were at the negotiating table have used words like
"concessions." They've acknowledged that under the threat of
removal of 1(4), it's a concession piece of legislation.
If one attempted to be
fair-minded and open-minded and objective and then approached
this with an ideological steamroller-is there not some way that
you can think of that this can be done without racing to the
bottom? In other words, the way the government has decided to
eliminate the question of uncompetitiveness is to force wages
down. At the end of the day, that should be something that all of
us don't want. There should be some way of bringing the others up. Then you're
not faced with the question of being uncompetitive with your
competitors, and the workers in the province aren't unilaterally,
because of your competitive problems, put in a position of having
to lower the standard of living for their families. Your
thoughts?
Mr Jones:
First off, I'm trying not to get anything special as one of the
eight general contractors. I'm just trying to get on a level
playing field with my unionized competitors, the general
contractors, and certainly we're trying to get competitive
collectively with the non-union contractors. I'm clearly in a
village trying to feed my children, and I'm incapable. In the
last four to five years, our volume has dropped considerably. The
Manitoba contractors are killing us. They're coming in; they're
non-union.
I'm obligated to the six
civil trades. I accept that, I respect that, but I shouldn't be
obligated to contracts I've never signed with 17 or 18 other
unions. If I'm given that relief that I'm entitled to, I feel,
then I believe the unionized subcontractors will do a lot better.
If I survive, they'll survive in Thunder Bay. If I don't, it'll
all go non-union. I'm not so sure that's what you want to do.
Mr
Christopherson: No, obviously.
Mr Jones:
Obviously, I think there has to be a non-union and a union
component.
Mr
Christopherson: Why?
Mr Jones:
One keeps each other honest, quite frankly.
Mr
Christopherson: How does that work?
Mr Jones:
Well, it does.
Mr
Beaubien: Thank you for your presentation, Mr Jones. I
agree with you that it's wrong, wrong, wrong to all the union
people. That's why we're here today, trying to rectify the
problem that there's been no negotiation, nobody wants to change,
everybody wants to maintain the status quo on this. That is
wrong.
In society today we have
divorce courts, we don't have construction courts, and that's the
problem. Once you're married to this-I've seen this in my own
area, that I think the unions in this case are taking advantage
of small contractors by not playing on the same level playing
field.
I'm not one that would
support abolishing 1(4), but that's exactly where you get. In
life today, when there's a wrong, you try to correct it, and
sometimes you overcorrect.
I totally agree with
someone who said that the best way to arrive at a solution is to
have the employer and the union at the table solving the problem.
But the unions have been totally irresponsible with regard to
dealing with this particular issue over the past 20 years.
Interruption.
The Chair:
Excuse me. Ladies and gentlemen, I would appreciate it-
Interjections.
The Chair:
Mr Bartolucci, do you have a question?
Mr
Bartolucci: Yes, I have a question. I want to precede it
with a comment. Mr Jones isn't going to get a fair hearing or a
fair question from me because I'm now forced to respond to the
government rhetoric. I apologize, Mr Jones, because I think
you've got some concerns that the government should legitimately
look at.
But you know what? I've
listened here now for the third day and I've continually seen
unions come to the table, acting in very good faith, with very
good recommendations. I've seen contractors come to the table who
are saying, "I want out."
Now, I have a problem. If
we're going to start spewing rhetoric, I have a problem with
anybody who doesn't sit around this table to listen to what
people have to say and question them on what they're saying, not
the government rhetoric. There's a time for that, and it's not at
this committee level. It is in the House. You should be ashamed
of yourself.
Interruption.
The Chair:
Ladies and gentlemen, I realize it's late in the week. This is
the third day we've had hearings and the emotional level is
cranking up a little, but please, no applause. Maybe that will
turn down the level of rhetoric that's going on at the
moment.
Mr Jones, that's your time.
Thank you.
BFC INDUSTRIAL
KVAERNER CONSTRUCTORS
The Chair:
Members of committee, we've had a request from the next two
presenters to make a joint submission. They would still like the
full 20 minutes each but they would like to make a combined
submission.
Mr
Christopherson: Obviously, we're all for that.
Interjections.
The Chair:
It varies the format a little bit. I've had the request and I'm
putting it to the committee. Is the committee in agreement?
Mr Gill:
We did that the other day. I think the first day we did that for
one of the submissions.
Mr
Christopherson: No.
Mr
Beaubien: Durham Construction. There were two
representatives from the Durham-
Mr
Christopherson: Yes, but they didn't take the 20
minutes.
The Chair:
OK.
Mr Gill:
Yes, we did that.
Mr
Christopherson: But I think it's fine. Anything that
will allow us to have a little more dialogue-
The Chair:
We have Mr Ken Steven and Mr Gary Robertson, from BFC Industrial
and Kvaerner Constructors. Please proceed, gentlemen.
Mr Ken
Steven: Madam Chair, members of the standing committee
on justice and social policy, I'm glad we had a few fireworks. It
reminds me of being in union meetings I used to attend. Since
I've come to the other side of the table, I don't have that
privilege any more. Sometimes it's difficult when you have these
discussions, but a lot of times something good comes out of
them.
We come before you today to speak in favour of Bill
69. Our companies are multi-trade industrial contractors who do
work across Ontario. Our above-average safety records are in part
due to the fact that we are fully unionized companies. By making
unionized companies more competitive, more Ontarians will arrive
home safely every night after working at one of our job
sites.
Why was Bill 69 necessary?
There is general acknowledgement on both sides of the bargaining
table that unionized companies were not competitive in some
markets because of province-wide bargaining. Bill 69, in
conjunction with the legislation introduced allowing project
agreements, gives the industry the tools it needs to be
competitive and allows Ontario to stay competitive with other
jurisdictions. The stability that province-wide bargaining brings
to the industry is desirable to contractors, customers and unions
by bringing real benefits to real people.
A document to read on the
history of construction in Ontario is the Franks commission
report from the late 1970s, which gives a really good background.
If you have the opportunity to read that report, it would help
you understand some of the issues that are on the table.
What was the role of the
provincial building trades in formulating Bill 69? From the
beginning of this government's first mandate, the Provincial
Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario has
maintained a professional and productive relationship with this
government. We commend the provincial building trades for the
approach they have taken and in particular encourage Pat Dillon
to continue the significant contribution he has made to improving
labour relations in Ontario.
The process proposed by
section 163.2 has been in use in some trade locals for about six
years now. For some contractors it has meant the difference
between keeping the business going and closing the doors. If this
process had been in place so that somebody from Tom Jones could
have taken advantage of it, they might be having a better go of
it today. Some locals chose a path that was different, and now
that path is about to be taken by Ontario. The fact that soon
every unionized contractor will be able to use this process is
encouraging to both established union contractors and those
entrepreneurs who want to be a union contractor but perhaps were
hesitant because of some of the barriers they saw to being
successful.
1650
As multi-trade industrial
contractors across the province, it is important that we have a
set standard when it comes to name-hiring and mobility. Right now
those things are all over the map and it's a job just keeping
track of how many people you can take to a local, how many you
can name-hire and what not.
Paragraphs 1 and 2 of
proposed subsection 163.5(1) set a minimum percentage of
employees who may be name-hired and/or brought in from another
local. Subsection (4), which allows the parties to decrease these
percentages, opens the door for this to be introduced into
collective bargaining instead of being a minimum standard across
the province. If there is a reason that the percentage should be
changed, it should be dealt with under paragraphs 1 and 2 of
subsection 163.2(4).
Our recommendation is that
we propose deleting subsection (4) of section 163.2 and changing
subsection (5) to (4), (6) to (5) and (7) to (6).
Thank you for your time. We
would now be happy to entertain any questions you may have on our
presentation or offer our opinion on any other issues that have
been put before you during other presentations.
The Chair:
That's the completion of your submission?
Mr Steven:
Of the first five minutes. The clerk described that we would have
five minutes, and then five minutes of questions, then five
minutes-we have a fairly significant presentation to make on
section 163.5, which is the ministerial review process.
The Chair:
I think I would prefer for you to combine that, if you don't
mind, gentlemen, and we'll go to questions afterwards. Otherwise
it's very difficult to control the time.
Mr Gary
Robertson: Section 8 of Bill 69 proposes, among other
things, the addition of section 163.6 to the Labour Relations
Act. The suggested section 163.6 requires the minister to conduct
a review of the effectiveness of the provisions of this
legislation by December 31, 2001.
The minister's review is
intended to measure how or if Bill 69 will have improved
competitiveness in our industry. We strongly support such a
provision, but we also believe that remaining competitive and
keeping pace with rapid global economic change requires a broader
review process to develop a "vision of the preferred future."
Leaders representing the
stakeholders and constituents of our industry must reach
consensus on the issues that affect the future competitiveness of
the ICI construction sector in Ontario. Once barriers have been
identified, mechanisms can be developed to effect change. The
process of bringing industry leaders together must remain outside
discussions about reform of labour legislation in order to
realize its full potential.
We would like to point out
to the committee that legislation has already been put in place
by the Ministry of Labour that could, and should, assist with the
proposed review. The Ontario Construction Secretariat was
specifically created and given the resources to perform functions
that fit perfectly with the objectives of the minister. The
objectives of the secretariat are to assist the industrial,
commercial and institutional sector of the construction industry,
including collecting, analyzing and disseminating information
concerning collective bargaining and economic conditions in the
ICI sector in the construction industry, as well as holding
conferences involving representatives of the employer bargaining
agencies and the employee bargaining agencies.
The recommendation being
put forward is that prior to the formal review by the Minister of
Labour, we believe that
the non-residential ICI and heavy sectors should have an
opportunity to conduct our own review of the industry. Such a
process would bring the industry stakeholders, labour and
management, together to identify future strategies and make
recommendations on improving the competitiveness of the ICI
sector.
We respectfully recommend
that section 8 of the bill be amended to facilitate a joint
review by the industry and the minister. We propose the following
under the review of provisions:
"163.6. The Ontario
Construction Secretariat shall conduct a formal review of the
industry to measure the effectiveness of provisions of the Labour
Relations Act as enacted by the Labour Relations Amendment Act
and to identify strategies and make recommendations to enhance
the competitiveness of the ICI sector. The findings of this
review shall be reported to the Minister of Labour no later than
September 30, 2001."
Section 163.7 is actually
the previous 163.6, which is the minister's review process that
is to take place no later than December 31, 2001, the idea being
that the industry itself has an opportunity to come together and
discuss the issues to further the cause in terms of dealing with
competitiveness outside the scope of legislative reform, so that
there are in fact some documents, some review that takes place
that the minister can take a look at, part and parcel with the
review process he is to conduct.
We believe there would be
widespread support for our suggestion, specifically from the
Ontario Construction Secretariat.
We thank you for your time
and interest, and we welcome any comments or questions if there
are any at this time.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Robertson. Do I take it that you have completed
your submission?
Mr
Robertson: Yes.
The Chair:
Then we'll go to questions. I'm going to allow about three
minutes for each party. We'll start with Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: Gentlemen, thank you for your
presentation. The more this goes on, the more I think an argument
is being made that there ought to be a major effort on the part
of the government to make it easier for the unions to organize,
because not only does it remove the uncompetitiveness question
some employers are bringing to the table, but now you're pointing
out, as the unions often do, that unionized construction
companies have incredibly higher health and safety records-I
think it's about 250% better-than non-unionized. If ever there
were good reasons why we ought to be organizing the rest of the
industry, I think you folks are making the case.
I'd like to return to your
first submission, which was around 163.5. That speaks partly to
the issue I've been raising with the minister and the
parliamentary assistant about just what levels there are and
whether they can change. But I may be mixing up a different issue
in the same clause, and you can help me if that's the case. Could
you give me again, in very brief terms, the changes you want to
make to 163.5? You're suggesting that if it can be moved, it
could be changed in negotiations and that's a concern for
you.
Mr Steven:
Yes. It's just one last thing. There's consensus-like the 40%
name-hire. If we get a job, which we just did in Thunder
Bay-Atikokan, which might take about 30 people for five months,
even if we could do 100% name-hire and 100% mobility, we're not
going to take 30 guys to Thunder Bay to do the work. We might
take one or two per trade, and we would want to have confidence
in the hall there to hire good workers when we get up there. So
the 40% name-hire and the 60% mobility is probably above what you
would actually in reality-
Mr
Christopherson: Sorry. Doesn't this say "may employ up
to"? So you're not bound by this legislation to hire the 40%. You
could hire 2% if you chose.
Mr Steven:
That's right. But further in subsection 163.5(4), it allows the
parties to decrease those percentages. When bargaining came, that
would become a bargaining chip, and over time, for whatever
reason, some locals would increase the percentages and some would
decrease it. Then we would be faced with the same challenge we
have now, where we have somebody who has to keep track of all
these different percentages across the province.
Mr
Christopherson: You're making the case as to the issue I
raised with the minister and the parliamentary assistant. When I
said to the minister that under subsection 163.2(4) and the five
parts of it the arbitrator would have the authority to change
both the 40% and the 60% ratios, the minister pointed to 163.5
and said: "No, that's the floor. There has to be 40%, and then
there has to be 60%. That's guaranteed." I can assure you the
reason they're delaying giving me back the legal opinion is that
they have looked at it and found out I'm right and that the
arbitrators can change that.
I appreciate your concern,
but I think the unions need to be really worried about the fact
that "significant" is no longer in the issue of competitive
disadvantage. All you have to do now is make a case that there is
a competitive disadvantage to you, and an arbitrator can change
all those ratios. You can end up with nobody being hired locally,
and somebody could name-hire everyone if they wanted to. The
unions had better be aware of this, because I'm not sure that was
the understanding they had coming from the bargaining table. It's
a little different than your concern, but it's on that same
highway of legal wrangling that I think we can end up on.
1700
Mr Steven:
I'm not familiar with all the fine points of the legal
argument.
Mr
Christopherson: I'm not a lawyer. I'm just doing the
best I can.
Mr Steven:
I'm just an electrician. But in some cases, that's what you need
to make somebody competitive. If you take a specialized contract
to do, maybe, certain high-voltage work that might be what's
necessary to get that done.
Mr Christopherson: I'm not arguing
you wouldn't make that case. I'm arguing that it means the unions
don't have a guarantee that that's the ceiling. That could very
well be the beginning of it, and we could see 100% name-hire
wherever an employer wanted, and that's not what the unions
negotiated.
The Chair:
Mr Christopherson, you have reached the ceiling. I will go to the
government side.
Mr Gill:
Mr Steven, if I read it correctly, I think the proposal the
minister has put forward is a win-win situation. Do you
agree?
Mr Steven:
Pardon me?
Mr Gill:
This is a win-win situation. This seems to be a step in the right
direction.
Mr Steven:
In my submission, I mention some locals that have used something
similar to this. It just happened to be the local I came from,
and I was on the board of directors when we started it.
We decided it was better to
have somebody out working at $20 an hour than sitting at home at
$36. That's the goal, to get people to work. I know there are a
lot of other arguments going on about other things, but that is
the goal and this bill has the gist of what was happening there.
It started about six years ago.
In that case, it was just
one trade. So perhaps for contractors that had just been
organized, a lot of their customer base was at a lower rate than
the union rates. Then the business manager could make those
adjustments and gradually bring that contractor up, instead of
taking him to the full rate right away and having him go
bankrupt.
Other trades in our area
didn't adopt that and so, as I said, you had a case of a
multi-trade contractor who would be able to be competitive
electrically but not in pipefitting or millwrighting or sheet
metal. What this does is even out the playing field for those
multi-trade contractors that can make a concerted effort to go
after work now.
I believe the bill has the
gist of the direction we should be going. We should take the time
to hammer out all the details and get it right. In particular,
the review process should be an ongoing process, something like
the Construction Industry Review Panel, which I believe was
started in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s and 1980s, but
for some reason when the friends of labour came in in the early
1990s, it wasn't continued. So something like the Construction
Industry Review Panel should be resurrected, and that would tie
in with Gary's presentation.
Mr
Robertson: I think it's important that we recognize that
there are contractors out there who are union by choice, that
it's a business relationship. What this bill does is build on
that relationship. Rather than a collective agreement, it's
looked at more as a commercial contract. If those business
partners are having difficulty in being competitive, they should
have an ability to amend the contract they have between them so
they can continue in business together. What this does, coupled
with project agreements and some of the other areas, is give that
flexibility to be able to address some of the competitive issues
we face.
Mr Gill:
In your opinion, the 40-60, the labour mobility, seems to be
working? Do you think that might work OK with some
flexibility?
Mr
Robertson: In some areas we have a greater than 60%
name-hire already. I think the key component here is the transfer
and the ability to bring into other areas specialized people that
perhaps one particular local doesn't have or who are working for
someone else. We as contractors share; we go to the same pool for
people. Those people may be working for somebody else when we go
into an area, and we should have the ability to bring in some
people who have the requisite skills.
Mr
Bartolucci: Mr Steven and Mr Robertson, I want to thank
you very much for an excellent presentation, one that, I might
say, after our little dustup here before you came, acknowledges
that the partners of the industry have to work together. I'm very
impressed that the big contractors would recognize the efforts
that the construction trade unions have put into it trying to
come up with a workable agreement. So I thank you for that.
I'm from Sudbury. I worked
for BFC when it was the Foundation Company of Canada-good
employers, treated their men well. I must tell you that Sudbury
isn't exactly the bastion of economic boom in the construction
industry, as you know, so I think I have a little bit of trouble
with the mobility and the naming issue. Is there anywhere in your
scope of thought where certain depressed areas in a particular
market such as construction could be excluded from this?
Mr Steven:
I agree with you that there will be in some cases some hardships
put on some remote areas where a number of employees will be
brought in by a contractor to do the work, but I think on the
other hand in a lot of cases that contractor from Toronto or
Kitchener or wherever wouldn't be going after that work if they
couldn't. So the work might go non-union anyway.
Earlier, John Pender from
the IBEW mentioned the older workers and whatnot being
discriminated against. If you look around union job sites, you
see a number of workers with grey hair, or some with no hair,
like me. But when you look around non-union sites, they tend to
have more younger workers and that's one of the differences. When
you get into a union company and join a local, you're there and
dispatched on a generally even basis with everybody else. That's
one of the advantages to the province keeping a healthy unionized
sector. They do treat older workers who might get discriminated
against better and they're more likely to be alive when they get
to retirement age.
I don't see a way that we
can apply regional development to this. I think we would have to
look at it in that it's a way for those members in that local
area-if they can get 50% of it instead of zero, that's better
than nothing. The tradesperson's goal, to my mind, isn't to see
how much time they can spend away from home. For some
tradespeople, yes, the farther away from home the job is the
better. That's one of the reasons I tried to get an office
estimating job, because I was making really good money. But I could see I was
going down the same road as a lot of the people I had worked
with: divorced, separated; their kids were teenagers and they
didn't know them. Yes, we have the ability through this to take
60%, but the goal of every contractor on every job won't be to
take that 60%, and the goal of most tradespeople isn't to spend
time away from home.
The Chair:
Thank you, gentlemen.
Ladies and gentlemen,
something unusual happened in the House today so there is a
chance that we will all have to go and vote at just before 6. We
still have seven more delegations, so I'm going to ask committee
members to keep that in mind as you ask your questions, because
we may have to limit some time here in order to accommodate
everyone.
Mr
Christopherson: There is a way to do this. If we just
keep on going, we'll be just fine, I think, Chair. Correct?
The Chair:
Yes. But if there's a vote, that may cause some challenges for
the members, that's all I'm thinking.
1710
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS,
LOCAL 353
The Chair:
Mr Fashion of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, Local 353. Again, hi, Mr Fashion. Go ahead, please.
Mr Joe
Fashion: I have to apologize for the brief, because I've
been here for the three evenings listening to the discussion. I
was going to try and keep it to two or three points, but I found
that I just couldn't get there.
I must make the comment
that 10 minutes really is terrible. I've been part of these
negotiations for seven months, including the residential sector,
which led into the ICI sector, and to spend all that time and
only have 10 minutes, which is now almost nine minutes-but I'll
try. I'm going to skip through this, so you'll probably have
trouble following it, but I did manage to say everything I wanted
to say in the brief.
Our union represents
approximately 6,000 workers in Ontario, the vast majority in the
ICI and residential sectors of the industry. Our members live
throughout the province in both large urban centres such as
Toronto and smaller centres such as Barrie, Oshawa, Hamilton, St
Catharines, Guelph, Milton and Kitchener, to name a few.
Labour Minister Bette
Stevenson and the Conservative government of Premier Bill Davis
introduced province-wide bargaining in 1977. The government put
this legislation in place at the request of the contractors and
their associations, who wanted to stabilize construction
bargaining in the province of Ontario. The IBEW and many other
building trades unions opposed this legislation at that time. To
a certain extent the legislation was effective, but it did hold
back wages, especially in Toronto. This act is going to undermine
provincial bargaining.
The original scheme was to
cure the fragmented collective bargaining structures which
brought instability to labour relations in the industry. Bill 69
will reintroduce such fragmentation and undermine the purpose of
province-wide bargaining. Local 353 supports the bill in
principle, but does not support the general contractors being
allowed out of their contractual obligations outside of board
area 8. Currently, the electrical contractors in Ontario do $100
million of work for these eight generals outside of board area 8,
and that's in a year. These electrical contractors are businesses
that span all sizes of companies, small, medium and large, some
of which are family businesses and also employ members of our
union. The IBEW and the contractors' association have a system
that encourages co-operation between the parties, although I
don't know why they ever got part of that group that they got
mixed up with.
We propose that in Bill 69
accommodation and travel should not be part of what the
arbitrator can eliminate. And apprenticeship ratios should not be
touched; they should be left in place.
At the bottom, number 3,
arbitrators: We propose that a list of arbitrators be created
consisting of those who are on the Ministry of Labour's approved
list of arbitrators and have a history of arbitrating cases in
the construction industry. Experience is certainly needed to be
an arbitrator in the construction industry because it is
different from any other industry in the province.
Hiring hall: Bill 69
destroys the hiring hall provisions by imposing default hiring
provisions to allow employers to select 76% of the required
workforce. This percentage is far too high and was never
considered during the industry discussions by the unions; 50%
would be a fairer number. Many unions have 50% now and have found
this number to be workable. These provisions ensure that
employment is not based on favouritism, but rather that everyone
on the list will have an equal opportunity to be employed based
on availability of work and their place on the list. At the same
time, the hiring hall provisions protect employers by requiring
unions to provide only qualified workers.
Bill 69 removes that
protection. It provides the employer with a licence to pick and
choose the same specific individuals for subsequent projects, and
results in an unfair advantage to some workers over others. It
will affect injured workers, older workers, women and visible
minorities, and it will affect workers in smaller communities.
The result will be an underclass of workers who will seldom be
selected for work and will end up leaving the industry.
The designated regional
employers' organizations: This just is a mystery to me and to the
people I talk to, how there can be more than one employer
organization that we have to deal with. We certainly recommend
that that employer organization be appointed by the local
bargaining committee from the contractor's side because they're
the people who know how to deal with the unions.
Section 163.6, the sunset
and review: We don't see any reason for the minister to have that
in the act. He doesn't require statutory direction to do a
review.
All through the negotiations, and they were
negotiations, mobility, name-hire and market recovery are
something the contractors' association has tried to get out of us
for-well, I've been business manager going on 13 years now and
they've been trying to get those things all these years. Now,
under this act, they've got it. They think they've died and gone
to heaven.
The word "significant"
needs to be in there when it talks about arbitration and
differences in costs. Accommodation and travel have to remain in
there, and again, apprenticeship ratios.
There are other things the
act doesn't talk about: the bidding system in the province of
Ontario. It's so terrible that there are people who take
advantage. I know why a lot of those general contractors went out
of business. They all got screwed by larger general
contractors.
Earlier and last night it
was said how wonderful it is in Alberta. You know what? I think
there are three large general contractors in Alberta now. They've
driven everybody else out of business and they are the ones now
that are in power. I guess it's only a matter of time before
there will only be two big general contractors in Alberta and I
hope they stay in Alberta.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Fashion. I don't think we have any time
for questions, gentlemen, sorry.
Mr
Fashion: Boy, and I cut it short.
The Chair:
You took your 10 minutes. Thanks.
1720
VANBOTS CONSTRUCTION CORP
The Chair:
Mr Matt Ainley, Vanbots Construction Corp.
Mr Matt
Ainley: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Bill
69. For the record, Vanbots Construction supports the thrust of
Bill 69. We think it's a good first step; however, we do have
some concerns and I'd like to address them today.
By way of background, back
in 1964, on April 3, Vanbots signed what's called a "working
agreement" with the Building Construction Trades Council of
Toronto and Vicinity. At that time, this agreement bound us to
six civil trades, which we were quite happy with and still are to
this day. We had to use subcontractors also of that type of mix
of companies.
In the early 1980s, though,
an unprecedented decision by the labour board found that the
general contractors were not only bound by the six civil trades
at that time, but to all 24 trades. These additional 18 trades
were never directly employed by Vanbots. We did not voluntarily
sign up for them; it was something done retroactively.
Subsection 1(4) of the
Ontario Labour Relations Act bound the employers forever in doing
business with the building trades council and we believe this
puts a situation of unfairness into our right to bargain
fairly.
As of 1983, 288 contractors
had a working agreement, the same working agreement Vanbots had.
This year only eight exist-you've heard this before-and no doubt
that will drop in the next few years if this is not properly
addressed.
The difference for Vanbots
is that we do not want out of our union agreements with the six
civil trades. We voluntarily signed up for them; they work for
us. What we want to do is create a level playing field, and I
will address that in a few moments.
Over the last 20 years
market conditions have shifted such that there are more non-union
and semi-union contractors now operating in this province. This
is a large growth that has taken away business from the eight
contractors now remaining today. In fact, we are in a position
where we cannot be competitive. That is not a good situation for
our firm or the other eight firms. All we seek is to have the
same equal opportunities these other firms have, to be
competitive in the marketplace and to make the decisions they can
make; we would like to have those decisions in front of us as
well.
As an example of how this
affects Vanbots, I have included in this document which is before
you now an appendix A, an invited bid list for one of Vanbots'
repeat clients that we've had a relationship with for seven
years. This client has chosen, on its next project, to
pre-qualify mechanical-electrical bidders. There are both union
and non-union mechanical-electrical bidders on that list.
Unfortunately, all the union mechanical-electrical bidders have
withdrawn from the bid list, and now we are faced with being in
the position that we cannot bid because we cannot use non-union
mechanical-electrical bidders. So we have been forced to call our
client with which we have a relationship and tell them we can no
longer have a relationship with them.
Vanbots, quite simply, is
losing its market share to non-union and semi-union general
contractors who have the ability to use non-union contractors.
This is a situation that is now restricting our ability to secure
work. There are other examples attached in the appendix that you
can review, but very simply, because time is of the essence here
today, from January to April this year our company has bid on
five projects totalling $22.7 million worth of work. If we had
the ability to use non-union on our mechanical-electrical, we'd
have been the low bid. So we are losing market share each and
every year.
Another situation that puts
Vanbots and the other contractors with our agreement at a
disadvantage is contractors who can come in from other provinces
or from the United States and set up shop. Companies such as
Ledcor, Dominion, Turner and Axor all have the ability to use
non-union trade contractors, which we cannot. They are therefore
much more competitive than us and are beginning to take work away
from our company.
There are also semi-union
contractors out there, and some notable companies such as Bird,
PCL, BFC, Buttcon and the like have only part agreements, not all
24; some of them own as little as two, some as many of seven or
eight. They too have advantages over Vanbots and the other
companies with our agreement.
What we request is a level
playing field for all contractors, whether they be union,
semi-union or non-union. We believe Bill 69 does not go far
enough to do that. The current proposed amendment to the Labour
Relations Act does not remove the unfair working agreements that
are affecting our company. The draft position paper of the
Minister of Labour, Mr Stockwell, dated February 3, made
reference that contractors affected by the working agreement
would be voluntarily released outside board area 8. He has not
done that in Bill 69. In fact the Premier and the government
promised to do that and they have not done that. All we ask they
do is make good on their promise.
It is important to note
that a level playing field and legislative relief is required for
the eight contractors, and it must be legislated because the
unions have said they will not voluntarily give us the relief we
seek. Vanbots Construction, so you understand the difference
between inside and outside board area 8, does $500 million worth
of work annually. Some 12% of our volume is outside board area 8,
so getting relief outside board area 8 is simply not enough. We
need more.
As I have said, Bill 69
currently assumes that the unions will be giving us voluntary
relief. They have openly stated they will not do it. We do
require legislative change as part of Bill 69. We respectfully
request that this committee consider this and make the necessary
amendments to Bill 69 that will relieve our position.
There are eight
contractors, as you know, that have our agreement. There are
other contractors that are in a position somewhat similar to
Vanbots and the eight, but not totally. The difference, though,
between the eight and those others is that we did not voluntarily
sign those agreements; those contractors did. All we want is a
level playing field.
We are very happy with our
union agreements with the six civil trades. It has worked very
well for us, and we want to continue with that. We have excellent
relationships with our unions that we do business with. What
we're asking for is a level playing field. Two hundred and
eighty-eight contractors in the last 20 years, now down to eight.
I think that is very much a significant disadvantage, and that's
what has been talked about today by these gentlemen, and I
understand that. But there is a distinct disadvantage for us, and
we ask that the committee seriously consider our request. Thank
you.
The Chair:
There are about two minutes left. Mr Gill?
Mr Gill:
Thank you, Mr Ainley. I appreciate your input. Our government has
been known to make promises and keep promises. As I understand,
this was a very open discussion among various parties and there
was no promise made outside of board area 8 in that sense. Can
you enlighten me that one was made?
Mr Ainley:
The Premier and Mr Stockwell have on several occasions stated
that they will provide relief for the eight contractors. This was
in the February 3 position paper. Mr Stockwell then did a tour of
the province and stated that position at three different stops
that he made along the way. So it's public knowledge that the
promise has been made. All we're asking is that it be delivered.
Bill 69 does not do that for us. Therefore what we're asking for
is that it be handled through legislation change, and that would
require an amendment to the current bill the way it's
written.
Mr Gill:
As I understand it, it was an open discussion, a fair discussion,
every party was involved, and I don't believe that promise per se
was made.
Mr Ainley:
Well, I would differ, sir.
The Chair:
Perhaps 30 seconds, Mr Bryant. No question?
Mr Michael Bryant
(St Paul's): No question. Thank you very much for your
presentation, but I want to make sure that we get everybody on,
so I'll pass on the question.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Ainley.
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
The next presenters are Mr Arthur Potts and Mr David McDonald,
representing the Independent Contractors Association. Good
afternoon, gentlemen. I'm sorry that we're sort of-
Mr Arthur
Potts: That's all right. Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr
Minister, members of the committee. Mr Minister, good to see you
had time to drop in for our presentation. I want you to
understand it was strictly coincidental since we were supposed to
go about half an hour ago, but good to have you here, in any
event.
The Chair:
Yes, we are running a little late. That's why I'm trying to
compress things.
Mr Potts:
It worked to my advantage. I couldn't be more delighted.
We're here in support of
Bill 69. We see its intent as expanding on the competition in the
construction industry generally by addressing bargaining power
issues and inequities that have arisen over the past 20 years in
the unionized sector. At the same time, the bill respects the
rights of employees who have decided to join a construction trade
union, and it does not permit wholesale double-breasting, which
may very well have undermined their freely taken decisions.
However, while the bill
addresses competitive issues on behalf of the unionized
construction sector, it does nothing to open up competition and
tendering practices for the non-construction employers, who are
unjustifiably subject to province-wide construction relationships
over which they have no input or control. Fairness dictates that
if the unionized sector is going to have better access to
construction work, then the bill should also address barriers in
the Labour Relations Act that continue to bind non-construction
employers to construction agreements.
1730
Our association represents
about 100 general shop contractors and subtrade contractors who
first came together in response to the amalgamation of the city
of Toronto and the Toronto District School Board. As a result of
that process, construction work is now tendered in those
jurisdictions only to contractors who have applicable trade union
contracts. We think that's grotesquely unfair. In effect, hundreds of
qualified contractors and thousands of their employees, some of
whom have worked for those jurisdictions for decades, were kicked
off the job sites and their businesses were destroyed.
Two years ago, the
government of Ontario passed the Economic Development and
Workplace Democracy Act, which partly addressed our concerns.
Bill 31 created a class of non-construction employers and
prohibited construction trades from certifying these employers
under the construction sections of the act. It further provided a
mechanism for non-construction employers such as the city of
Toronto to get out of construction bargaining relationships that
should never have been applied to them in the first place.
Unfortunately, the bill has
not worked. In the two years since coming into force, no
non-construction employers have been able to escape their
bargaining relationships with the trades. While this is due in
part to very creative interpretations by the Labour Relations
Board, it has more to do with ambiguous language that we believe
can easily be rectified. In particular, we would like to see an
amendment that would clarify the definition of employer for the
purposes of construction sections of the act.
Currently, the act broadly
defines the employer as a person who operates a business in the
construction industry, but then narrows the definition by
excluding non-construction employers. The effect is that a
non-construction employer, like the city of Toronto, is
automatically presumed to be covered by the act unless they can
take the necessary steps to be excluded.
The definition of employer
for our purposes and the purposes of the construction sections of
the act would work better if it specifically defined an employer
for the purposes of the act as a person who operates a business
in the construction industry selling construction services. A
non-construction employer therefore would be defined as a person
who is not engaged in a business in the construction industry
selling construction services. The key here is that the
definition specifically looks to the selling of construction
services in order to catch the employers.
We would also like to see
an amendment that would remove the requirement under subsection
127.2(2) that a non-construction employer have no employees in
the bargaining unit as of the date of application. This
requirement perpetuates an extremely undemocratic and unfair
practice that Bill 31 has attempted to remedy.
At the city of Toronto, for
instance, there are eight collective construction agreements in
question. In these eight bargaining units, under the ICI sector,
the city currently employs about 130 construction workers,
including only one glazier, one bricklayer, two sheetmetal
workers and no insulator mechanics, all of whom have collective
agreement relationships. There are 14 painters and others in
electrical carpentry. These few employees make it impossible for
the city to open up tendering to thousands of qualified
tradespersons because they cannot make an application to get out
of these bargaining relationships.
The clause should be
amended by deleting all the words after "employed in the
construction industry" in that subsection. The OLRB has the power
to amend bargaining unit definitions, so these persons would
continue to have representation at the city but they would be in
an industrial bargaining unit, where they are more appropriately
placed. It is patently unfair that one bricklayer should dictate
that hundreds of qualified bricklayers are ineligible to work on
city-funded projects.
In summary, we believe the
thrust of the bill is consistent, and it's appropriate that it
helps open up competition while respecting the right of employees
to self-determine whether or not they wish to be represented by a
construction union. While making changes to benefit the union
sector, we would ask that you also make the necessary changes to
open up tendering for non-construction employers.
You should simply ask
yourselves: Is it appropriate that the city of Toronto, a
non-construction employer, should have more construction
agreements than any other construction company in the province?
If you answer that as not appropriate, you will need to make
these few changes to help restore fairness. We've attached some
draft suggestions of the language and would be pleased to answer
any of your questions.
Mr
Bartolucci: I'd like to thank you very much for your
presentation. I'm sorry I didn't hear the entire presentation. I
apologize for that. I'd like to just ask for your opinion with
regard to the final offer selection process that's in play. I'm
going to ask you because I think you're on the side that there's
sort of some favouritism attached to it, whether knowingly or
unknowingly. Do you think that there should be both the DREOs and
the EBAs making final offers for one side? Do you not think it's
like a good guy, bad buy approach to final offer selection?
Mr David
McDonald: We're the innocents in this discussion. We
don't have to deal with these.
Mr
Bartolucci: No, and that's the reason I'm asking.
Mr Potts:
Quite frankly, the unionized construction sector, both the
construction employer group and the construction trade unions,
have their own deals to work out on how this is going to
work.
I'm surprised to hear all
this give and take and back and forth in these committee
hearings. It was my understanding that we sat down and hammered
out an agreement between groups and that this was in place. I
guess it's all those who have been excluded or somehow weren't
included who are coming forward. I'm not sure.
We haven't followed those
discussions and have not been part and parcel of them. It really
doesn't affect our industry. We represent companies who believe
that people should have an opportunity to bid on jobs regardless
of whether or not they are unionized.
Mr
Bartolucci: Maybe that's why you're the best guy to
answer this question, and so I'll go back to it again. Really, do you think it's fair
when you can have a good guy, bad guy final offer process in
place?
Mr Potts:
I'm not qualified to answer.
Mr
McDonald: I'm not qualified to answer.
The gist of it is that they
basically have to figure it out for themselves in the end anyway;
there are bargaining relationships. I'm not in favour of
double-breasting and getting out of all the union agreements.
Some people deserve unions and some people-we do well without
them. They try to certify us. I don't think we've engaged in any
unfair practices, but we have the right to bid on work. But they
are in the situation where they have to bargain in good faith
with their employers.
Mr Potts:
Putting it another way, the fact is that in those sectors where
we're concerned, where the unionized construction contractors and
unions hold an absolute monopoly on the work, they don't have to
worry about outside competition. It's where they're having
outside competition from safe and economic contractors in the
open shop sector that they're concerned about competition. If
they're going to get more access by changing agreements, then
that's fine and dandy. We will compete with them dollar for
dollar, health and safety issue for health and safety issue on
every single job site. But we want the same right to compete in
their back yard, where they have restrictive tendering
provisions; for instance, in the city of Toronto.
The Chair:
That's all the time, gentlemen.
Mr Potts:
Thanks for your time.
GREATER TORONTO HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Mr Murphy, Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association.
Mr Jim
Murphy: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm actually not going
to be making our presentation. Our president, Eric Wegler, will
be making it.
Mr Eric
Wegler: Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee
members. My name is Eric Wegler, and I am president of the
Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association. With me is our
director of government relations, Jim Murphy.
First, some background on
the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association. We represent the
residential construction industry within the GTA and have done so
since 1921. Our membership of over 1,000 companies includes the
residential home builder and professional renovator, along with
other components of the housing industry including subcontractors
and professional firms. Last year in the GTA our members sold
over 37,000 new homes and contributed over 100,000 person-years
of employment to the regional economy.
Tonight, I want to speak to
three issues: firstly, why the legislation is required; secondly,
the geographic areas covered by the legislation on the
residential side; and thirdly, the issue of arbitration.
I am sure many of you
remember the strikes that affected our industry in the summer of
1998. Residential construction in the GTA lost a combined total
of 59 weeks of production. At least one trade was on strike at
any given time between May l, 1998, and September 14, 1998, for a
total of 135 days. In the last 11 years there have been no fewer
than 2l strikes, with a combined length of 90 weeks.
Unlike other industries,
the residential construction industry is represented by a number
of unions. Varying contract expiry dates create uncertainty and
difficulty for both builders and, more importantly, new home
purchasers. This situation is commonly referred to as stacking,
and is what the industry and consumers believe needs to be
changed the most.
Together with other
industry associations, we proposed a solution that would provide
for a common expiry date for contracts and a common length of
contract, with matters then being referred to arbitration. The
legislation before you today does just that. The legislation will
be a huge improvement in providing both the industry and the new
home purchaser with certainty in the process, as it includes a
common expiry date for contracts, a common length of contract
with matters then being referred to arbitration.
1740
The legislation before you
today does just that. The legislation will be a huge improvement
in providing both the industry and the new home purchaser with
certainty in the process as it includes a common expiry date for
contracts, a common length of contracts of three years and a
limited strike and lockout provision of 46 days.
Most union agreements in
the Toronto area cover the entire GTA. The legislation,
unfortunately, omits Durham region from its coverage area.
Similarly, Simcoe county, including the city of Barrie, is also
excluded from the legislation. The Greater Toronto Home Builders'
Association has been working with both the Durham Region Home
Builders' Association and the Greater Barrie Home Builders'
Association, who are in agreement that the provisions of the
legislation affecting residential construction should also cover
Durham and Simcoe. The Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association
recommends that the legislation be amended to include Durham
region as well as Simcoe county. The amendment will treat the GTA
market area the same and provide for common agreements GTA-wide.
There would be no second-class homebuyers within the GTA.
The last issue I wish to
address today is arbitration. The legislation affecting the
residential sector currently states that parties to collective
bargaining agreements devise their own arbitration model. Failure
to agree on a model would then be addressed by an arbitration
model to be designed by the province as per a regulatory power
provided for in the legislation.
The Greater Toronto Home
Builders' Association would offer two comments and
recommendations on this matter. We believe that only monetary
items should go to arbitration. This is the model followed by the
Electrical Contractors Association and the IBEW, which is the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. This existed over their last three
rounds of negotiations, albeit on a voluntary basis. From an
industry point of view, our concern is that items be limited so
that the process is not open-ended, with hundreds of issues being
arbitrated. Such a system would also encourage the parties to
seek a resolution to as many matters as possible by themselves
prior to arbitration.
Second, the Greater Toronto
Home Builders' Association recommends that final offer selection
be the model used for arbitration. Again, both the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Electrical Contractors
Association have used this model, which has limited their dispute
and brought settlements quickly. Under final offer selection a
date is given and, if an agreement is not reached, the position
on the table becomes the final position of both parties, with no
time to amend it before an arbiter rules. We note that the
legislation, as currently drafted, provides for such a mechanism
on the ICI side of the industry. We would like to see the same on
the residential side.
I want to thank you, Madam
Chair, for your time this evening. We believe this is important
legislation for the residential construction industry. It will
provide annually literally tens of thousands of new home
purchasers with increased certainty on the delivery date for the
most important purchase of their lives, a new home.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Wegler. We have perhaps three minutes for
questions.
Mr
Christopherson: Thank you for your submission. Just on
your last comment, "It will provide annually literally tens of
thousands of new home purchasers with increased certainty...."
Let's bear in mind, though, that when we say having stability in
the marketplace of building homes is good to the extent that
people have deadlines etc, construction workers buy homes too.
Their relative wage rates reflect and affect everyone else in the
whole continuum of the relative amount of money that everyone
makes, whether it's nurses, firefighters or construction workers.
The idea that we've got yet one more area where there's pressure
pushing down wages at the end of the day I don't think is going
to help those of you who build houses, because the more you
cheapen the value of labour in Ontario, the fewer people are able
to purchase a new home. But that's a statement. I leave that for
you to comment, if you wish.
My question would be on
your comments around the 45 days.
Mr Wegler:
Forty-six days.
Mr
Christopherson: Forty-six days. As you know, number one,
we've got a disagreement with some of the union leaders who were
at the negotiating table with the minister and with the employers
as to whether or not that was agreed upon.
But certainly, if you look
at the Hansard, quite a few union leaders have come forward and
said, "If you ram this through, you effectively deny the right to
strike," which is a universal right declared by the United
Nations, and they're not going to stand for it. At the end of the
day, you're going to end up with more disruption and more
wildcats than you would if you didn't have this in place right
off the bat. What are your thoughts on that?
Mr Wegler:
First of all, the unions are in agreement with the proposed
legislation, so I don't really see it as a problem.
Mr
Christopherson: No, I'm sorry, not all of them.
Mr Wegler:
They were at the table with us for a year and a half and we
worked very hard with them on coming up with what you find in the
current proposed legislation, albeit you don't agree, but we were
there.
Mr
Christopherson: Mr Cartwright, who represents the
carpenters, has been here and has stated that this was not agreed
to and he disagrees with them. They've got a huge problem.
Mr Wegler:
We may not have agreement with everybody, but certainly the major
unions we deal with and that deal in the greater Toronto area are
in agreement.
Mr Murphy:
Madam Chair, just on that point, if I can just-
The Chair:
We really are running-
Mr Murphy:
At the table, I think for the first time, everybody who was at
the discussions agreed to a defined date in terms of the strike
or lockout period, which has never occurred in the private sector
before. People may differ in terms of the number of days and the
time that takes, but on that issue they agreed.
Mr
DeFaria: I am glad you are very enthusiastic about the
legislation. I just want to ask you a very direct question. Can
you tell the committee what safeguards there are in industry to
ensure that as a result of our legislation the salaries of
construction workers will not be negatively impacted by the
legislation? I want you to be specific, because following you is
my good friend Tony Dionisio to make a presentation, so he'll be
dealing with that question.
Mr Wegler:
I think the arbitration model itself ensures that the results
will be fair. Over the past number of years certain strikes have
been settled by arbitration and, to be honest with you, the
settlements most usually have been more in favour of the worker
than of the employer. I think we've all agreed that if
arbitration is the way to go, then it's the way to go, and we're
willing to live with the results.
Mr
Bartolucci: Just to follow up on Mr Christopherson's
question, you made a comment that the parties agree to a defined
length of time, but that definition never included the number 45.
So you would agree then with a window of 75 days.
Mr Murphy:
I didn't say that.
Mr
Bartolucci: But you said that everybody around the
table-
Mr Murphy:
Everybody accepted the principle of a defined time.
Mr
Bartolucci: -agreed to a defined time.
Mr Murphy:
Everybody accepted the principle of a defined period for a strike
or lockout period. There wasn't agreement in terms of what the
time was, but they agreed on the principle. So at the end of the
day somebody has to
make a decision in terms of what that period is.
Mr
Bartolucci: But the 45-day wasn't agreed upon by the
players. It's important for me to know that.
Mr Murphy:
I can't speak for the other parties.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Murphy and Mr Wegler, for coming this
afternoon.
UNIVERSAL WORKERS UNION LOCAL 183
The Chair:
The next presenters are Mr Mark Lewis and Mr Antonio Dionisio. If
you're going to read this whole package in 10 minutes-
Mr Mark
Lewis: I don't intend to read it.
Mr Antonio
Dionisio: Madam Chair, Mr Minister and members of the
committee, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to
speak with regard to Bill 69.
My name is Tony Dionisio. I
am the business manager of the Universal Workers Union local 183.
We represent a true number of over 24,000 members in the
residential sector. It's our industry and that is why we're here
today. I will ask my general counsel to speak on the bill, and
we'd be more than pleased to answer any questions after this.
Mr Lewis:
Given that we only had 10 minutes to speak, we've provided you
with extensive materials. It's not our intention to go through
them, but they outline general views on the process of reform in
the residential sector, our views on Bill 69 and suggestions with
respect to amendments.
Just picking up on some of
the last comments, local 183 has never been in favour of limiting
the right to strike. However, when it was put to us that some
limit may be imposed on our right to strike, after consultation
with our membership and thinking about the situation, our view
has been that we should go straight to arbitration. If we're not
going to have real strikes, then let's just go to arbitration.
Nevertheless, that's not the option that was set out in Bill 69.
We are determined to try and make the system work, to work within
the system, and we think we can make it work with increased
stability and assurance for homebuyers and the entire industry,
but there is a need for particular amendments.
1750
We too are requesting that
the geographic area be expanded. We are looking to include all of
what is commonly known as board area 8 and Simcoe county and what
is known as board area 9, which is the area immediately to the
east of the city. Those board areas are the geographic areas for
which construction unions acquire bargaining rights. Accordingly,
we are looking to define the arbitration processes and the
limitations in Bill 69 by way of board areas, because most of the
agreements will reflect those standard board areas. Our position
on what the geographic area should be is set out precisely in tab
2 of the brief.
The most important
amendment we are asking you to consider is the concept of
including a designated residential employer organization within
Bill 69. We bargain standard industry collective agreements with
employer associations and with independent employers. We have
tried to set out as accurately as possible in the table that's
found at tab 1 of your brief the agreements that we have and the
numbers of employers that are bound to those agreements either by
virtue of their membership in an association or because they're
independent employers who are bound to a collective agreement
which contains exactly the same terms and conditions.
Our industry demands that
there be one collective agreement for everybody so that no
contractor has an advantage over any other unionized contractor,
so that there is a level playing field. The problem we are facing
with Bill 69 as it is currently drafted is probably best set out
in reference to our bricklaying division. As you can see from the
table, we have agreements with 579 bricklaying contractors; 139
of them are members of the association MCAT. We can have one
arbitration hearing for those 139 companies. They will be
represented by their association. With the independents, we're
left with the prospect of having 440 arbitration hearings, one
for each of them. That's 441 arbitrations for our bricklaying
division alone, and the problems continue all the way down the
table. That cannot be what Bill 69 was intended to do.
There has to be a mechanism
in this bill for this trial period which makes the employers
speak with one voice, so we can go to one arbitration, one view
on the other side of the table, one decision which is going to
set the industry agreement. Having all of those parties at a
hearing is literally impossible. The levels of sophistication
among the contractors, never mind finding a room big enough, and
the language difficulties we face will make that very difficult.
What we are suggesting is that the minister choose an employer
association and say: "For this round, for this trial process, you
represent your industry. You go and consult with all the
independents. You get them together and find out what they want.
You hold ratification votes and so forth among yourselves, but
we're only going to do one arbitration to ensure that there's one
agreement at the end."
There are a number of other
amendments we are seeking, most of which we think are quite
simple and straightforward and tend to be housekeeping in nature.
We are looking to ensure that the arbitrators who conduct
arbitration hearings under Bill 69 have the standard powers that
other arbitrators have under the Labour Relations Act. We have
provided suggested amendments and the reasons are set out in our
brief and in our tabbed documents.
We also want freeze
provisions to protect our workers. Our members can be on strike
up till June 15. Thereafter they are required to return to work
and must continue working throughout, and an agreement will be
set for them. There must be, in our view, language put into Bill
69 to say what the terms and conditions are that they work under
in that period before there's an arbitration decision: what
they're supposed to be paid, what their benefits are, what
happens if they're fired. We've drafted amendments which we think mirror other sections
of the act, similar situations.
We have requested that
language be put in Bill 69 to deal with retroactivity, which we
think is a vital concern and will encourage parties to make their
own settlements if they're unclear about the retroactive effect
of any wage increases or other changes in the agreement.
We also ask you to urge the
minister to create a pool of specialized arbitrators for the
construction industry. If anybody's going to set our agreement in
what is a very difficult field, we feel the industry as a whole,
employers and unions, should be able to decide who they are.
We're not like any other industry. Nobody wants somebody who
might be very good at health care dealing with the construction
industry.
There's one further major
item with respect to the residential sector which we would ask
you to look at, and that is what arbitrators do with what is
commonly known as a crossover clause. All of our collective
agreements and lots of the other unions in this room have
collective agreements which incorporate by reference the terms of
other collective agreements, called a crossover. For example, our
concrete and drain collective agreement incorporates by reference
our utilities collective agreement, among others, and says that
when the employer does utilities work he should apply the
utilities agreement. It is unclear, based on the language of Bill
69, whether the arbitrator has the power to deal with those
incorporated by reference agreements. Accordingly, what we're
asking is, if the parties go to arbitration, those agreements
that are incorporated by reference in the old collective
agreement continue to be incorporated by reference in the new
collective agreement.
The last point I wish to
talk about is the family relationship sections, subsection 1(4)
and section 69. We have no problem with what we perceive to be
the intent of the sections. We have never believed that a family
relationship in and of itself should be enough to establish a
related successor employer on the sale of the business. However,
it seems absurd to us that the labour board should be the only
people in the room not to know that there's a father and son
involved, or that they have to maintain a legal fiction that Mr X
and Mr X aren't somehow related. It seems to us that if the
Legislature wishes to send a clear message to the labour board
that family relationships should not be determinative, then the
legislation should not say they can't consider a family
relationship, but they should just not consider a family
relationship as being determinative, and we've drafted something
accordingly.
I'm sorry, I went through
very quickly. We have tried to outline it in our materials. We
put in our earlier positions throughout the process. We have
tried to maintain consistency. I'm sure Mr Dionisio will speak to
this further if he's asked questions. We've included our
newsletters to tell you about us. I think I can say this: You're
all welcome to come and visit us if you want to see our union and
what we're trying to do to make sure our industry works and has a
workforce for the future.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Lewis. We have run out of time,
gentlemen, unfortunately.
1800
MASONRY INDUSTRY EMPLOYERS COUNCIL OF
ONTARIO
The Chair:
We'll go to the next presenters, Mr Blair, Mr George and Mr
Bannon, representing the Masonry Industry Employers Council of
Ontario.
Mr John
Blair: Madam Chair, members of the committee, we
appreciate your indulgence. I'm sure that over the course of the
last three days you've heard most technical and rhetorical
arguments, so we're not going to beleaguer you with more.
As the Masonry Industry
Employers Council of Ontario, we represent the signatory
employers in the ICI sector across the province. Simply put, we
are in support of the amendments as they are tabled. We believe
in some of the people and the representatives from both labour
and management who were at that table. We believe that the
consultation process that they've come out of is a compromise. It
has been done by consensus and it results in legislation that we
believe will affect the unionized sector in Ontario, will make it
more competitive and will advantage our employers.
It's also understandable
that the second issue we've addressed here may come as a surprise
to some of you. I am cognizant of the fact that the issue between
the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers
and the Brick and Allied Craft Union of Canada is in fact before
the Ontario Labour Relations Board, therefore we're sensitive and
understanding that people would not wish to comment on the
particulars of that issue. However, I'd like to draw your
attention to one simple fact that we believe is important. In the
amendments that are tabled, there is no provision to deal with
the employer community while these union factions are dealing
with each other in this process.
We have a concern, and it
is one we've experienced over this last three years. Inasmuch as
we have tremendous regard for the right of a trade union to seek
status as the certified employee bargaining agency, and in turn
we have tremendous regard for the right of an individual to seek
proper representation from a trade union, and to make that
decision without any intimidation, coercion or intervention in
any way, as the act states, by an employer, it's unfortunate in
our minds, however, that the same level of respect is not
exhibited by the parties in the course of seeking the status they
seek. We, as an employer community, have been called upon to
spend a substantial amount of money in an effort to protect
ourselves from this spiralling vortex, as I've mentioned here,
that has been ensuing at the board for the last three years.
It is not for us to
question the merits or the provisions that are set out in Bill
80. We believe those are provisions which are the sanctity of the
union to deal with itself in its own internal relationship.
However, we have experienced in our own way the result of this
process, and we're asking you folks to look at this in some way
to tighten and strengthen the provisions that when this process
is going on, the employer community is not required to go and
defend itself through a myriad of litigations at the board until
the status of the union has been decided. This has been a
three-year migraine headache for our community, and the Aspirin
has been very expensive.
I thank you, and we'll
entertain some questions. I've brought David Bannon, who is
counsel for MIECO, here in case there are questions regarding a
legal nature, and I've asked Mr Eugene George, who is the
chairman of MIECO, to be here as well. Thank you very much.
The Chair:
Thank you. We have time for just perhaps a couple of questions
from each member.
Mr Gill: I
just want to make a comment. I appreciate you coming in, first of
all. I think you put it in a nutshell, in a way, when you say you
support Bill 69 and the agreement was reached by consensus. I
appreciate that and I'd like to put that on the record because
that's what we've been saying from the beginning, that it was the
process to follow. I suppose to some extent that has been
successful. Thank you.
Mr Eugene
George: I would just like to comment on mobility. The
mobility factor for a person like myself-I've been in business 51
years now and the last few years have been very difficult. With
the help we're getting in mobility, what will happen to us is
that many of our people will be able to transfer out of an area,
from, say, Kitchener to Galt, which is only a matter of six miles
away, or Guelph, 11 miles away. Under the old system in the
hiring hall, we could not do that. So this certainly is a
benefit.
The other benefit that I
see out of this is apprentices. I used to train 60 apprentices.
We haven't had but one or two, and one of the basic reasons is
that we can't develop enough hours in a particular area, such as
the Kitchener area, to keep these apprentices busy. This is
certainly going to help me in developing apprentices. Many of
these apprentices have become our competition, our
superintendents, our foremen and our tradespeople, and from that
point I think it's great.
Mr
Bartolucci: Thank you very much for your presentation. I
have some concerns about the mobility issue and the naming issue,
among other parts of the bill that are bothersome to me. But
let's talk about mobility for a little while, Mr George.
I'm from Sudbury. My best
friends are bricklayers because I grew up in the construction
industry. They have to work with this. Because you're going to
bring your company from southern Ontario, you're going to have
the opportunity to bring 40% of the workforce with you. Whether
you're going to or not, you have the opportunity. When you get
there, you're going to be able to name another 60% or the other
36. So you're not going to take my paesano Armando, who's 51
years old and has a bit of a sore shoulder. I really worry about
that because he may not be on next at the hiring hall; he may not
be the next guy to get a fair shot at it. How are you going to
tell my friends in Sudbury that mobility and the naming issue are
fair to them?
The Chair:
Can you answer that in about 10 seconds?
Mr Blair:
If I can, really quickly. The fact is that there's a geographical
reason why you don't want to bring people that far. You have to
pay them to travel that distance, and within the provisions of
the agreement there has to be a mechanism so that you're going to
bring those people in.
The other part I'd like to
applaud you on is your selection of friends. The bricklayers have
been mentioned a lot during the course of the process, and we're
happy. We're an industry that's looking to promote itself, so I
appreciate that. I understand your concerns, but we have every
reason to believe that there are qualified tradespeople in
Sudbury, as there are in Kitchener. I want to point out too that
despite the item that I mentioned here with regard to the two
union factions, we still believe the unionized sector is the best
sector and we still believe, despite some of the wranglings, that
consensus and compromise are the best vehicles, even when people
don't seem to be as willing to listen, sometimes, as they need to
or ought to.
The Chair:
Mr Christopherson, you have time for one question.
Mr
Christopherson: I just want to pick up on the answer you
gave Mr Bartolucci, when you said you wouldn't pay that much
money for travel and allowances. Under this new law, if you want
to make an argument that the fact that you have to pay
accommodation and travel under the collective agreement has made
you uncompetitive or put you at an uncompetitive disadvantage,
then you can apply for relief under Bill 69 and effectively have
all those accommodation costs and travel allowances wiped
out.
Also, we're hearing so far,
and I don't hear the government making the case any
differently-we still have the notion that the 40% could be
changed under the same clause. Some of the answers you gave in
terms of assurances: I have some concern they aren't protected by
virtue of the new language that's in 69.
Mr Blair:
If I can address your question-I believe that's a question. The
provisions that are set out and tabled in these amendments. If
one were to look at the existing collective agreement that we
employers now have with the union, you would find that many of
the mechanisms that are set out there and the ones that have been
tabled are in fact a part of this agreement. Inasmuch as I'm not
going to sit here and promote or try and present as if we have a
Valhalla arrangement, I am cognizant of one thing. The realities
of the marketplace and the fact that there are good, qualified
tradespeople within the bricklayers' union allow us to operate.
That's why we're not here tabling and recommending
double-breasting. We are saying we believe we can work within the
system. These amendments will clear the lines of communication
and make it better for us to operate.
The Chair: Thank you,
gentlemen, for coming this afternoon.
1810
ELLIS-DON CONSTRUCTION
The Chair:
The final presenter for the evening is Mr Bob Smith from
Ellis-Don.
Mr Bob
Smith: My name is Bob Smith. I'm vice-president of
Ellis-Don Construction. I'm taking a little different tack. I'm
going to start by telling you a bit about Ellis-Don. It was
started in 1951, building primary schools for the baby boom and
then grew to high schools as the kids got a bit older and in fact
blossomed on as a major general contractor on the University of
Western Ontario campus. It grew from those roots to Stratford,
Sudbury, Timmins, Ottawa, chasing opportunities. The biggest job
it had in those days of growth was the University Hospital in
London, and I'll speak a bit about that in a minute.
We turned to the larger
market in Toronto and over time we became the largest contractor
in the Toronto market. By then, we were the biggest contractor in
Ontario and we were the best contractor in the country. We grew
from Halifax to Vancouver from a solid base in the London market,
where to say we were pre-eminent would be a gross understatement
for the London market.
My father, Don Smith, who
was largely responsible for this growth, rode the success of this
company to make further significant contributions to the
province, for which he was awarded, among other recognitions, the
Order of Canada, the Order of Merit from the Canadian Council of
Christians and Jews and he was the champion of the Boys' Club in
London, among many other contributions to the community. What a
great story. What a great Ontarian. What a great Canadian. What a
great legacy to leave to his corporate and his immediate
family.
Then came the "Oh, my God,"
labour relations ruling of 1992. You've already heard the
incredible impact that this ruling has inflicted: 280 companies,
probably mostly family companies smaller than Ellis-Don, but some
pretty large companies-all union, all gone. Only eight left.
Think about it.
Ellis-Don, builder of the
SkyDome, here today begging for its life. Imagine. You have heard
and know the details of what that ruling and the foregone union
deal to fix it in 1997 has meant to the eight general
contractors. Some of our competitors have protested that they
prefer the status quo. Let's understand why. The electrical
contractors have said they prefer us shackled. Let's have a look
at their motivation too.
But I'm here to give our
viewpoint, to convey in a sensory fashion that you might
understand the fear within our company. If we lose this round,
this flight of logic will have prevailed and our company will
fail. With its proud heritage, its proud employees who own almost
half of the company, we will fail-not without a fight worthy of
our valiant and loyal troop, but fail regardless because of the
unfair laws of our province, wrongly interpreted, and the
small-minded special interests who have so little to benefit from
our undoing but who push for it anyway.
Let me paint a few pictures
for you. University Hospital and Victoria Hospital in London, now
the London Health Sciences Centre, both built by Ellis-Don in our
past, are looking for significant expansion as part of the
$1-billion hospital expansion now coming in Ontario, looking for
a competent contractor with whom to partner in their planning as
well as their execution. Respectfully, there is no one more
qualified than Ellis-Don to fill that role for those hospitals in
London.
But they won't consider
Ellis-Don at all. They can't consider Ellis-Don because of unfair
Ontario laws. Imagine. Ellis-Don, builder of more hospitals in
Canada than any other contractor, cannot be considered for these
London hospital projects. Think about it. Does that sound right
to you?
Let me paint a picture of a
lump sum bid. A project comes in for a lump sum bid for a
preferred client of Ellis-Don; a short list of bidders and,
luckily, all union, save one. Estimating studies the drawings to
map out Ellis-Don's plan, unique, we hope, in meeting the owners'
requirements at the most competitive price. We've checked the
bidding subs and because of the size and complexity of the job,
only major unionized subs are bidding. We're pretty happy about
this.
Two and a half weeks of
late nights and then the day of the closing, only one surprise: A
non-union structural steel subcontractor we didn't expect phones
in a bid $250,000 lower than the lowest union bid. All our
efforts are now wasted-two weeks. We will not get the job. Our
competition, PCL, Bondfield, BFC and other members of COCA, get
the same bid. They know as soon as they get it that one, and
maybe two of the bidders, if Eastern or VanBots is also bidding,
are toast. One or two bidders. Life is good.
Now yesterday Earl Roberts
of the electrical contractors, the same group who killed the 1997
union agreement to let us out of this tragedy, stated that the
eight generals cannot be treated fairly because they represent
$100 million worth of work for his group outside of area 8. We
did a double-check on the veracity of that figure last night and
the correct number is less than $20 million. I would like to
stress to you the intentional misdirection attempted by inflating
figures of that ilk.
But let's go back to my
example of the low, non-union structural steel price. Ellis-Don,
because of that price, is toast. But is Earl Roberts and his
group? Nope. They can still deal with the other union
contractors, the PCLs. Guess what? If Bondfield, the non-union
contractor, gets the job, they can deal with him too. Anybody
here smelling a rat?
Let's look at construction
management against some of my non-shackled brethren. I came out
of a presentation for construction management services for a new
client some months ago and met my competition on the way out.
After presenting our proposal and introducing our proposed staff for their
project, the owner's questions make it crystal clear that my
competition, who stand in front of you protesting that changing
the status quo offers an unfair advantage to the group of eight,
have laid it all out. One of their biggest attributes is that
they can contract with all subcontractors, except where they
themselves are bound, while Ellis-Don can't, and they told. This
is their marketing strategy against us. If they have explained it
well enough to the owner and if the owner understands it well
enough, then they win. We're toast. Great marketing strategy.
Ellis-Don has gone coast to
coast in Canada, but in all honesty Ontario is the core business.
We've gone to the USA, Malaysia and the Caribbean, but Ontario is
the core. If we don't make it here, we don't make it.
Is anyone much further
ahead putting us down and potentially out? Not much; maybe just a
little. Yet they parade in here to get their last easy nickel
before we die. The OGCA members will compete without Ellis-Don to
worry about. The electrical contractors will have to compete
without the easy in that they now enjoy with the last eight,
until the last eight are all dead. Then I guess they'll have to
cope with the real world.
The six civil trades whom
we would have continued to employ will have one less or
potentially eight less sources of employment. The other unions
won't even blink. They won't address their competition issues
until they jump up and bite them in the nose-a different issue.
But the legacy of one of Canada's premier contractors will be
lost, not of natural causes but through the province, through its
unfair laws and its acquiescence to special labour interests, who
sat by and let an obvious and blatantly unfair series of
misfortunes run its course.
On behalf of all the
shareholders, employees and other stakeholders in one of
Ontario's proudest companies, I am asking and pleading: Do the
right thing. Level the playing field and give us a fair chance at
having a future by making a legislative amendment to let the
eight generals out of the building trade agreement or at least,
at a bare minimum, out of the agreement in board area 8. Thank
you very much.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Smith. We perhaps have time for one quick question
from each.
Mr
Bartolucci: I just have one quick question. The answer
for you is getting rid of 1(4), clearly?
Mr Smith:
Subsection 1(4) would be perfect. Thank you very much. I'll take
that.
Mr
Bartolucci: But it would only to be fair to you.
Mr Smith:
We would take getting out of the building agreement but across
the province. Shackling us in board area 8 and especially when
six out of the eight make their primary living here is just
unconscionable. It's Ellis-Don's main market within the province,
and Ellis-Don's main market is the province of Ontario.
Mr
Bartolucci: The Alberta model hasn't been
successful.
The Chair:
That's two quick questions. Mr Christopherson.
Mr
Christopherson: I appreciate you coming in today, trying
to sweet talk us.
Mr Smith:
It's my charm.
Mr
Christopherson: Yes. Oh, well, lots of it too. I have to
tell you, I was reminded of the former chair of General Motors,
who roared, "Whatever is good for General Motors is good for the
good old US of A." I think it's a little more detailed than
that.
Let me ask you, though,
would it not make sense perhaps in the overall interest of the
number of Ontarians who are employed by your company and others
if we tried to raise everybody else up closer to where the union
rates are rather than lowering everyone else down?
Mr Smith:
We have no problem with union rates, and we have no problem with
the six civil contracts with which we are hired and which we are
quite happy dealing with. Union construction is a great source of
qualified labour and we know we have it with existing agreements
wherever we work within the province. We're not dissatisfied with
that. What we are dissatisfied with is the building trades
agreement which binds us to unions where we never have had one
single employee, and that constitutes a horrible burden to us
that we just cannot, in the long term, overcome. There is no
possible way. I'm here pleading and I'm not being anything but
most serious. This isn't one of our shareholder meetings.
Mr
Christopherson: I really think there was an opportunity
for the government to look at this a whole lot differently. I
haven't yet had one employer come in here and say, "That would be
a disaster if I had to deal with everybody out there in the
construction industry that was unionized." Quite the contrary.
I've got one employer who talks about the fact, "Our
above-average safety records are due in part to the fact that we
have fully unionized companies." Those of you who employ
unionized construction workers have a 250% better health and
safety rate in terms of workplace accidents. It makes a lot of
sense to me that what the government should have done is start to
put in legislation that makes organizing easier and raise
everybody's standard of living, rather than going around trying
to knock everybody down in this province.
The Chair:
That was one question and one statement.
Mr Smith:
Very quickly, I have no objection to what you said at all. This
is not a plea for 1(4). This is not a plea for double-breasting
or non-union. This is a plea to get out from under the building
trades agreement in Ontario, which is a tremendously onerous and
unfair situation for the eight contractors.
The Chair:
We'll go over to Mr Gill.
Mr Gill:
Just to thank you for coming by. No further questions.
The Chair:
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your patience. I do
apologize for being late this evening. However, I just want you
to know that we will be travelling next week and considering
clause-by-clause on May 29. Again, have a great weekend. Thank
you for coming.
